Dreamer
by Aleycat4eva
Summary: The lines of reality and not-reality have always been pretty blurry to Lien. It never bothered her much, because she made her own lines and followed her own whimsy. Things, however, have a way of getting out of hand, and it's a shame the lines begin to blur for every one else as well. SI/OCinsert, Multiple OC's. OC centric. PROBABLY ABANDONED.
1. In the Beginning

I do not Own Naruto. This fic is heavily inspired by LinzRW's The Skipper. Read it. It's boss. Also, tw for dysphoria and trouble finding reality. Also, linear is not how I would describe this fic.

* * *

Reality, she knows, is entirely subjective.

Oh, people might argue that, sure, but the fact is that they have to argue it at all. There is a niggling suspicion in the back of their heads, a question that they find is incredibly hard to answer.

What is real?

Lien thinks about that question a lot, and her best guess is that reality is ultimately what the most amount of people in a certain place or time agree upon as being real. There are limits, of course, because at one point many people believed the world to be flat, and that didn't make it so. Thing is, to them, _it was_. Their conviction was so steady and unrelenting that the world was flat, and that was a fact, even when it wasn't really flat or factual at all.

So reality is a matter of perspective, or at least, _collective_ perspective. There are things that most people can agree upon being very, very real, and some that most will throw away as not real at all.

Unfortunately, as with all matters of perspective, it shifts a little bit from person to person, and it's limited by what humans can conceive. Everybody might agree that the light exists, but because of the way human bodies work, they might not all perceive it exactly the same shade, and because it's beyond human comprehension, nobody's really sure what lightspeed really is other than a concept.

It's all really complicated, and also a matter perspective and comprehensive capabilities.

Anyway, the reason she's going on about this is because she wants to establish the fact that reality is somewhat of a fluid concept, and it changes. It's always changing, and the fact that she can't really grasp what reality is remains a huge problem for her. How is she supposed to succeed like this? How is she supposed to set a goal for herself when goals are such abstract concepts in the first place? What _is_ a goal anyway?

Obviously she knows what a goal is, but to set one you have to have all sorts of others things first. Ambition, for one, and focus for another. Drive is probably important.

All these inward, esoteric concepts that she gets, but when it comes to outward manifestation, she struggles with. How the heck is she gonna go and fulfill a set objective? What is it? What are the qualifications for fulfillment? How does it pertain to her interests or desires? Does it have to manifest in the physical to be achieved, and does it have to be perceived by others to be considered manifested?

It's enough to drive her nuts, and really, she has lost all hope that she isn't nuts at this point. It's far too late for that. She wishes it wasn't, and maybe that's her goal. To reverse the sequence of events she is almost one hundred percent sure are to blame for this.

Then again, if they were reversed, would that be fulfillment, or non-existence? Does that count as a completed goal? Is it set if it's just a vague metaphysical thought form?

Aiyaaah! She doesn't know!

Maybe if she follows it in a linear format it will help.

Lien, she dreams. She has dreamed for as long as she can remember, and the places she goes when she dreams are as real to her as the world she knows when she wakes. Most of the time, separating them is fairly simple, because in one, she wakes up in her bed and goes about her life in the pre-described way that seems fairly constant to the inhabitants of this realm. She is a child, she is an adolescent, she is a teenager, and she is adult. Things flow forward, never back, and there are always ways to explain what is happening.

Her social circle is small, but it is stable. She has friends, co-workers, and a family of a sort, and they help keep her focused and oriented. Some, later, will become more ingrained in the madness then perhaps they ever wish, but they remain solid, in so much as anything ever remains the same. She has school, then later, work, and she functions as best she can in these environments.

Her body takes a shape and it holds it for long periods of time in this waking world. It does not fluctuate in size or form, and it is a constant thing. She inhabits her limbs well, and they move to her command, instead of the otherway around. She does not feel entirely to uncomfortable about her shape, is ambivalent towards her given form, as it works well and suits its purpose.

This world she dubs 'waking' or 'real', because it seems to make the most sense. It doesn't always make sense, but regardless of how ignorant she is on some some subjects, people assure her that there is always an explanation to be found.

The other world, it is not that way.

When she falls asleep inside the waking world, Lien comes to exist inside another realm. In this world, nothing is given, and everything is always changing in ways that do not make sense.

Time has no meaning, because when she learns the story of this place, she learns that she lives it both forward and back, jumping in and out of the pool that seems to make up the founding basis here.

The people of this world that come to know her assure her that she isn't always part of it, that she comes to them both in dreams and their reality, jumping the borders of real-and-not so hard as to make them question their own sanity. Her social circle here is entirely random and makes no sense, and she drifts in and out of established hierarchies like a piece of dust inside a ray of sunlight. She is both tangible and not, a thoughtform given physicality at times, and nothing in others.

Her body there (Here? Somewhere?) is a great cause of distress, because it is always shifting. Sometimes she is three again, sometimes sixty. Sometimes she is not even human at all, but a curious animal given sleek wings or smooth scales to move with, and though she lacks lips and a proper tongue, she is often given a voice as well. She morphs periodically, as free and ephemeral as the wind, and nothing really stays the same.

Not all things inside the dream make sense. Some things just are, regardless of what she seems to desire or want, and there isn't an explanation for them. It just is, as it will always be.

Lien would go so far as to say that some things inside the dream go out of their way to be nonsensical, most likely in an attempt to warp her or bend her to their needs.

It never works well. She doesn't hold a shape in that world as well as she does in the waking one.

She can't pinpoint when, exactly, she lost her sense of reality though. It's hard to say, exactly, where she lost track of 'waking' and 'dreaming'. Perhaps it is when she met the boy who grew trees to shelter himself from the dark, or the child with snakes eyes and a hole in his heart.

Thinking about it, maybe she gave her sense a reality to the girl with eyes like aquamarines and a smile like secrets, or perhaps she gifted it to the man with a soul full of hate and confusion. Maybe it got lost somewhere in between her cousins joining her, or the figures from her dreams slipping over into her reality.

When she described it to her mother, the woman had laughed and pinched her cheek.

"You dream to of Shambhala, the pure land," she teased. "Safety and peace, with no sense of self or time. When you dream, you are not one, but all. You become the dao."

Lien doesn't get it. She's not sure if she ever will.

She keeps dreaming.

* * *

 **AN: So. Blame Enbi. IDK What I'm doing here or where this is going. I have no beta, no outline, and just sorta a vague plot. Kinda thinking about turning this into OC someday, but for now, it's fic. We will have many, many characters, and tons of nonsense.**


	2. At Some Point, Probably

I do not own Naruto.

* * *

Lien doesn't quite remember the first time she meets people in the dream land.

It's hard to remember something that could happen in the future, or may have happened in the past. It could be happening at that very point in time, because in the dream world, nothing is linear, and everything is always shifting. She may very well recall their first meeting to be at some point it is not, and therefore it would not be an accurate memory, and she would be wrong.

Or rather, not right, which is a shade of wrong.

It's a funny concept, she's found, this Right vs. Wrong. It seems entirely dependant on far too many variables for one person to ever properly calculate. You must know not only the situation, but the people involved, the history of the subject, how it may apply in the future, and the theoretical effects it may have on those it could possibly involve, and still you will be limited by what you speak and you ability to convert a four dimensional concept into flat, two dimensional language.

It spans even greater than Right vs. Wrong though. People, she finds, are very attached to sorting things into two particular groups. The groups will have seemingly firm, distinct lines and lots of space between them from a distant view, but upon closer inspection, the lines will fall apart, and there will be far more than just two groups, if there is are any groups at all.

Lien cocks her head to the side, her small body particularly suited for this action. She can't be more than physically three or four at the moment. Her short, spiky black hair is the same length it was when she first entered primary school, and her limbs are still plump and round. She was a chubby child, all round cheeks and bouncy flesh. It's always a fun form to take.

The boy across from her blinks and shies away, crouching back into the tangled branches around him. He has wide black eyes that shine like obsidian mirrors, and she sees herself reflected upside down inside of them. The perspective is a bit different, which means she enjoys the change.

"I think," she tells him, "I'm dreaming."

The boy blinks.

"You're not supposed to be here," he tells her quietly, his voice like the barest whisper of wind.

He slides back until the branches almost cover him completely, and she notices for the first time that she is barefoot. The grass underneath her feet is prickly and itchy, but much nicer than squishy mud.

"Maybe," she agrees with him, wriggling her toes and trying to get a solid look at the forest around them. It's big, much bigger than any forest she has seen inside the waking world. The trees make sequoia's seem small in comparison, and the canopy above only lets in streams of light here and there.

It's very quiet for a forest as well, with only the rustling of leaves and the periodic sound of bugs to fill it. Strangely enough, there is also the distant sound of bubbling liquid, like a test tube or fish tank.

She would try and explain it but this is his dream, not hers.

"There's never been anybody in here before," he tells her, peeking out from behind the branches. "It's not right."

She shrugs, deciding that she wants to take a closer look at the grass. She flops to the ground, and the moisture seeps up from the dirt and into her pants. It's oddly uncomfortable, because denim was never meant to be wet. Or, at least, she doesn't like wearing wet denim.

"It's not safe. You should go," he tries, and this time, he sounds less like he's talking to himself, and maybe like he's addressing her.

"Why are there water noises?" she asks, after a particularly loud bubbling sound bursts through the rustling trees. It sounds like a clogged sink that keeps draining in spurts.

The little boy's face goes white, and he stops moving completely, as if stillness will stop her from spotting his peach colored toes in the emerald stalks. It's not a very effective method of hiding, she thinks passively.

"He'll hear you, go away," the boy whispers at her, in that peculiar way children have. Which is to say, it isn't much of a whisper at all.

She hums, threading her fingers through the grass and leaf litter. There isn't much of the latter, which is weird considering all of the leaves on the trees. Actually, if she thinks about it, it is very strange that there is so much grass at all. There isn't enough sunlight coming through the canopy to support its existence, and it is all very uniform in length, as if a mower came through.

Still, it's a dreamscape, and applying logic to this world won't help in the least. She'll drive herself mad trying to figure it out. Or, more mad, she supposes.

"You're scared," she comments lightly.

"You're not supposed to be here," he says again, more vehemently.

She looks up from the grass, and notices that he's crouched on the ground in his fort made of tree branches. He balances on his toes, his arms wrapped around his knees, and she thinks that it makes him look very small. An acorn among the tower oaks.

"Where should I go?" she asks him seriously.

He seems to think about it for a second, his face scrunching up with the effort it takes him to formulate a response.

"Not here," he decides, and she frowns, her brows furrowing on her face.

"Is that the only choice?" she asks. "Here and not here?"

He huffs, looking frustrated. His eyes dart around the dark forest suspiciously, as if their quiet conversation will draw unwanted attention even though there is nobody but the two of them in the empty glade.

"If you move elsewhere, then obviously you are not here, so yes," he says.

Lien sighs, lying flat on her back and rolling over a few feet to the left, thereby fulfilling the strange boys desires. It doesn't harm her to do so, and it took little effort to do.

"There," she says, her voice muffled by the ground. "Now I am not where I was. Is that any better?"

"That's not what I meant!" he declares angrily. "You're still here!"

"But I'm not there! If you have a place where you need me to go, then you need to make more sense," she explains exasperatedly. "Because I moved elsewhere, which isn't what you said counted as here, but now you're including where I moved in your definition. You're confusing me."

"I'm confusing you?" He shouts. "You're not making any sense! You're crazy!"

She frowns, turning back to face him while still on her belly. He's emerged from his fort to stand over her, his big dark eyes narrowed in frustration, his hands placed on his hips.

"That's mean," she informs him haughtily, ignoring how some of the dry, crumbled leaves have found a new home in her hair and the moisture has seeped into her shirt as well as her pants. In the scheme of things, her mild uncomfortableness means very little.

"You need to go away, because you're loud and weird, and if you keep making noise, the snake man will show up and he'll hurt us!" he shouts at her, jabbing his tiny finger in her direction.

She makes a face, because nobody said anything about people hurting them. In fact, there's nobody here but them, but she won't question his logic because it's the other world, and anything could happen. She met talking dogs once.

"Why didn't you start with that?" she asks, popping up and grabbing his outstretched hand. He jolts at the sudden movement, looking surprised, but she's already busy dragging him through the trees, leaving his sad little fort far behind them.

"What?" he asks, surprised at the warmth of her hands. They are dirty and a little bit wet, but they feel so real. He's never had somebody hold his hand before, and it's….sorta nice.

"Well, if somebody is gonna hurt us then we should move," she answers, tugging him along.

"Obviously, both here and not here are out of the question, and when I rolled over to there, you said he could still come, so we have to go some place else," she answers succinctly, craning her head around. They could probably walk forever in these empty woods, but as long as it's someplace other than here, not here, or there, they should be fine. Heck, if they keep moving, then they should technically be nowhere at all or a bunch of places at once, so that's even better, right?

"That doesn't make any sense though," he informs her, staring at a leaf caught in her hair. It's weird, because it's a burnt rusty red that he's not sure he's ever actually seen before. In fact, he's sure he's never seen it before in the lab. He'd remember something so colorful.

"It doesn't have to, this is a dream," she answers him.

"But it's not a dream," he answers back. "We're both awake, how could we be dreaming?"

She snorts at him, her nose wrinkling up strangely on her face. He notices her eyes are dark like his, but not as large, and there is a bandage on her neck, just underneath her ear.

"You can be awake in a dream. Paradoxes happen all the time, like people being happy and sad, or energetically lazy," she teaches him, turning in a random direction, making them both careen around.

"What is a paradox?" he asks curiously, and her features droop when she registers his words. She looks at him through the corner of her eyes, like he said something silly, and he feels himself flush.

"A existing state of contradiction," she tells him. "Like being awake in a dream."

"Oh," he answers, not really understanding.

For a while, they walk, and it seems endless. The trees look similar, but not exactly the same, the grass stays the exact length throughout the journey, and the dark depths of the forest never get any brighter or nearer, but it's nice. Different.

It's not the clumsy fort that always collapses when the snake man comes, or the cold dark that sometimes hurts. It's just him and this stranger, and they walk together, hand in hand, and maybe for the first time in his entire life, he feels safe.

He feels like he would be okay if this went on forever, and he's just about to voice that when her head turns to the side, as if she can hear something in the distance. Her feet shuffle to a stop, and he hears water noises getting louder in the distance.

"You're gonna wake up soon," she tells him in that flat voice, as if it's an absolute fact. It's not good, or bad, it just is.

"I am awake," he tells her again, because she should know even if she is crazy.

"Well, then, I'm going to have to go soon," she tries instead.

He panics, gripping onto her hand just a little bit harder, because he doesn't want her to go. He wants her to stay, and they could walk in the forest forever. No labs, no tanks of water, no snakeman. Just the trees and grass and that leaf in her hair.

"Don't," he whines. "You should stay."

She smiles at him, and she squeezes his hand back. A part of him thinks it's a bit silly, because she's little like him, and she doesn't look strong at all. There's no way she could keep away the snake man, but he feels like she could. He feels like she she could do a lot of cool things, even if she is crazy.

"It'll be okay, it's just a dream," she tells him, and already he can feel the moisture on his skin, the weightlessness of the water.

"If it's a dream, then I want to stay asleep," he admits, panicking. " Don't make me wake up, don't let me go!"

She smiles, and he can see a light behind her, tinged green by the glass around him. He shifts, and for the first time, he notices that her clothes aren't like anything he's ever seen before. She isn't like anything he's ever seen before.

I won't let go," she promises. "If you're scared, you can always come back. We'll go nowhere together."

He grins, because he can see that she means it, and he can't help the happy noise that escapes his throat. The light gets a little bit bright, and the water even louder, and eventually the forest fades away entirely.

He blinks, and there is nothing but the lab. He floats inside his tube while the wires wind around him, and the halogen lights burn through the green glass. For a moment he feels like crying, because she lied to him, but the he notices that his hand is warm when the rest of the water is a tepid temperature that perfectly matches his skin.

Even though his heart beats in fear, he smiles, because he can almost imagine her fingers still wrapped around his. He's not alone, and next time, they can try and walk to nowhere together.

* * *

"So I had a weird dream again," Lien states idly. There's no heat behind it, not meant to be anything other than a passing statement. It's a comment, and she hears many conversations start like that.

"Please stop," groans her cousin Theresa. She's sitting across from her, cross legged on her sleeping roll, her head in her hands. Lien notes her copper hair is particularly shiny today. She should mention that later, she hears it's a compliment, and people like those.

"Why?" Lien asks, because there's a reason in the waking world. Or at least, most the time there is.

"I'm had the weirdest dream last night. I think you're starting to influence my unconscious," she states.

"Unconscious, or subconscious?" Quips her sister, and Lien's other cousin, Franky, curiously jotting down a few words in a battered looking notebook. She's halfway consumed by the work at hand, and Lien knows it's only halfway because she's still talking.

"Don't be pedantic, you know what I meant," Theresa snipes back without heat. There are bags under her eyes, she notices for the first time. She deems it unnecessary to comment on those though, because in the past, when she commented on such observations, it was considered borderline insulting.

Social Nuances. Lien gets them.

(...Sometimes.)

"Well, do tell," Franky prods. "Seriously, we've been psychoanalysing Lien's dreams for years now. Freud would cream himself if he could hear some of our conversations. It's only fair if we tear apart your dreams."

"Comforting," Theresa drawls tiredly. She takes a steadying breath, running her hand down her face. "I...don't know? I was a shadow, but like, a sentient shadow, and some dude used me to kill another dude."

"That's fucked up," Franky says, putting her notebook to the side. She twists around to grab her travel bag, the worn flannel shirt riding up her waist a few inches. "I can't wait to see what the book has to say about that."

"Oh Mary mother of Jesus," Theresa curses. "Not the book."

"The book," Franky intones ominously. "The mighty and all knowing."

"The book," Lien joins in. "It sees into your dreams, it sees into your soul."

Theresa sighs, wondering why fate sees fit to give these people to her as family. At this point, after years of seeing them at their best and worst, she should be used to it. Somehow, though, somehow they always found a way to exasperate her.

The book in mention, worn and abused looking, is drawn from the zippered bag without further ceremony. The half faded title 'Dream Interpretation Encyclopedia' scratched in places only legible to them because it had been around so long. Admittedly, Franky had only purchased it around eighteen, so it wasn't that old, but it was harshly, and heavily, used.

Franky flicks it open with a practiced twist of her fingers, skimming through crumpled pages stained with coffee and unidentifiable food bits. At this point, none of the assembled really believed the passages contained within, but it's always a good source of entertainment in their downtime.

"Shadows, shadows," Franky murmurs, making her way to the S's. She huffs out a sigh when she reaches them, her eyes darting back and forth.

"So, shadows mean you're an introvert. No surprise there," Franky ribs playfully. "Assuming the dude was using his own shadow to kill another dude, it means that you will find a protector, or that there is a problem you need to confront soon. Or both. Also, there could be a journey ahead."

"Particularly unhelpful," Lien summarizes. "As usual, the book provides vague wisdom."

"One could even say it was a bit…. _shady_ ," Franky stresses, closing the Encyclopedia with a snap, sporting an overly self-satisfied smile. Her use of a pun draws groans from the other girls, who never fail to let her know their feelings on her word-play.

"Franky," Theresa grumbles, "That was terrible."

"Franky," Lien echoes, letting her tone say it all.

"I'm sorry," said cousin replies with a huff of laughter. "You two seem upset about something, care to _shed a little light_ on the situation?"

Lien doesn't answer, simply throwing the nearest object -a half eaten piece of jerky- at her cousin. It hits the curly haired girl in the forearm and comes to rest on her leg moments before being snatched up and consumed. There are no worries of germs between them any longer. Not when they've basically shared enough to have the same immune system at this point.

"You're a menace," Theresa huffs out indignantly, "Barking at kids in supermarkets, spouting Franky-ism's everywhere. You need to be stopped."

Her reply comes in the form of a charming smile, half chewed jerky pushed between her teeth. She touts the half-mad look that Lien has envied for years and never duplicated correctly, her eyes wide behind her glasses, her short hair in careful disarray.

Theresa just rolls her eyes.

"Whatever. Next thing you know, you'll be getting Lien inspired dreams, and I'll get to whip out the book. Just you wait," the brunette threatens, pointing an accusing finger.

"I hope I'm one of those tree-jumpers. I want to spit in the the eye of physics," Franky mumbles around a mouthful of food.

"Not as cool as you think," Lien cites from experience.

"We'll see," Franky replies, finally swallowing her food. "We'll see."

Three days later, Lien get's an angry text on her phone in the middle of lunch rush that she can't check until break. It turns out to be from Franky, who complains that she had her dream, but she was the tree, not the climber, and it was all around weird and unsettling.

At the time, Lien writes it off, thinking that her cousin is right and she has been talking too much about her dreams lately. Tucking her phone back in her apron, she mentally determines that she's going to have to cut back on it a bit, for everybody's sake, and doesn't think on it anymore.

Later, she realizes that this may be her first mistake.


	3. Exp Share

I do not own Naruto, or Alice in Wonderland. Alternate Title: Why Hidan doesn't wear shirts _._

* * *

She's an animal this time.

It's always weird not wearing a human form, she'll be the first to admit it. Her mind usually stays, but there are strange instincts that drive her, and her body works even though she's used to operating a more ape-like form. She has no arms to speak of, no fingers or hands, but she has wings, small and speedy things that power her through the air as she hops among the stubby, bush like trees.

Her mind isn't quite human, not filled with idle thoughts and vague desires. She doesn't have the capacity to think too hard on certain subjects, or acknowledge abstract concepts of danger. She is only aware of some intangible pull telling her that winter is over now, and she must restore her lost vitality with the fruits of spring. The north is calling her back, the romping grounds of her ancestors, and she feels the need to venture that way once again. There are nests to build and territories to defend.

She knows that it is warm, wherever she is, and that the seeds she periodically picks from the bushes fill her stomach in a satisfying way. They have no particular flavor, or none she can detect with her dry, clumsy tongue, but some have hard shells that are satisfying to crack through, and others slowly give beneath her beak in a pleasant way.

In the waking world, her toes are not long and spindly, scaled over and dry. She admits she has some skill with picking things up with them, and perhaps they could operate in place of her fingers with much more training, but she doubts she will ever be able to hold a branch still with them to peck at a stubborn pod. She doubts she'll need to.

(She might, but it's not likely.)

Still, she enjoys this form, with keen eyesight and a dead nose. Her body is light, her bones hollow and filled with air, and she can feel the wind in her soul. She's small, true, but fast, and able to take cover foliage to avoid predators. Or, most predators anyway.

Humans, she's found, are the exception to most rules of nature. People are always finding ways to recreate the natural order, and her little bird mind tells her that loud noises are something to run from. It also tells her that sometimes humans leave tasty crumbs, and if she waits, her meal may come quicker and easier than expected.

"Fucking shut your stupid mouth!" Comes the enraged scream in an unfamiliar voice. She titters, protesting from her perch. Her wings open and beat the air while the branch jitters precariously beneath her, threatening to toss her off.

Lien cocks her head around to watch the potential danger, drawn by the sound. There is a flash of white, the gleam of silver, and fuchsia eyes so sparkly she wants to steal them and add them to her yet un-built nest. Her tiny heart races in her chest, and she stills, watching as he clutches his head.

"No!" He declares again to nobody at all, his fingers threaded through his hair. He looks manic and dangerous, his eyes never straying from the shirt laid out on the rock. They slip to the side like he hears something, and he scowls without cause.

"Don't get fuckin smart with me, you're in my fucking head, _you_ shut the hell up!" He protests loudly, stomping his foot.

The dry grass is crushed mercilessly beneath his sandal, and she snaps her beak, feeling the desire to fly down and tear the broken stalks to pieces. Perhaps there are seeds in the stalks, or maybe she just wants to shred them. Instincts are strange.

There is a bit of movement that catches her eye, and she tilts her head even further, because it does not come from the man. No, it is from the piece of clothing resting on the rock, the black fabric twitching unnaturally even though there is nary even a breeze. It would surprise her, but the dream world is an odd place, and this isn't the strangest thing she's seen.

The man, however, seems to disagree.

"Hah!" He crows, -and she thinks it is a very good impression. Respectable birds, those crows- "I told you it was fucking moving! This shirt is possessed!"

Again, there is another beat of silence, and he looks as if he is listening to something. After a moment, his face floods red, and he bares his teeth at nothing, hands still clasped over his ears. Fury paints his features, and he thrashes around madly after a moment.

"THAT'S IT! THAT'S IT YOU DUMB SHIT! I'M CUTTING UP THE SHIRT, THEN I'M DIGGING YOU OUT OF MY SKULL WITH MY BARE HANDS!" He shrieks cacophonously. This time he is less crow and more eagle, which sets her nerves on edge. She hops closer to the trunk of her bush, hoping to avoid the gaze of any predators. Hungry things, those eagles, always ready for another meal.

Then, because the dream world has never failed to surprise her, he darts forward to the rock, hands leaving his skull to pick up the article of clothing. His pale fingers grab the hem, and the top seems to struggle in his grasp, lazily twitching and struggling as he grins maniacally, pulling it apart. A tear spreads down from the neck, the sound of snapping threads filling the glade, and the strange man laughs hysterically as he fists his hand in another section, ripping it to perfect, nest-lining sized shreds.

It doesn't stop there though, because once he's done with the shirt, he starts on himself. Lien watches in sickly fascination as he digs his nails into the soft skin of his temple and starts digging. She knows, somewhere, that it is horrifying, but her bird instincts are simply bemused, knowing that his meat will draw predators. What a silly human, this man. The vultures will come, along with the cats and racoons.

His pretty eyes have gone wide, and he's grinning from ear to ear, showing off a frankly unsettling amount of teeth. He keeps laughing as he digs further into his head with his graceful fingers, driven by some unseen force.

"That's right!" He cries. "Scream! Where are your puns now!?"

A strangled noise emerges from his throat after a beat of silence, and even though she didn't think it was possible, he pushes harder to maim himself. He's feverish in his devotion, and she watches trails of cerise well up and slide down his cheeks.

He grunts from the pain, but it does not stop. Quicker than she expects, he hits something important, and his motor control loses finesse. He's still gurgling out a laugh as he goes down, falling to the broken grass, legs akimbo beneath him.

Lien titters as he goes still, and peers out from her bush, curiously eyeing her surroundings. There are no sounds save for the quiet hum of bugs, and perhaps the distant sound of a stream.

Still, she waits a little while, just to be safe.

Then she flutters out, wings a blur, and picks a few pieces of the shredded shirt to carry with her, making sure to be quick. The meat will draw scavengers, maybe eagles, ever hungry as they are, and she is small and vulnerable. Once she has chosen a piece, long enough to use, but light enough for flight, she's off again. The scraps will fit perfectly in the nest she is planning, and the north is waiting.

Still, it's very sad those shiny eyes of his were so soft, and couldn't be carried. They would have surely made a lovely decoration.

* * *

The next time they meet, it's at market. Lien has been, and hopefully will forever remain, a fine connoisseur of Theresa's incredible baked goods and treats.

When they were younger, Lien may have thought (and even said) some rude things about Franky's and Theresa's alternative eating habits. It included a lot of her own opinions on things like flax seed and non-processed grains.

She will admit that she was an ass. It wasn't like they forced the food on Lien, so she really had no right.

Thankfully, Lien actually stooped to try some of her cousins baked goods. Now she pays for the privilege of consuming Theresa's non-dairy, organic, locally sourced goods. She's gotten into fights over kitchen scraps, and more than once she has been been lectured after a sloppy attempt at sneaking a treat before market day.

(True, it just means she got sneakier about it, but she took her lumps. Same as Franky.)

She's doling out the necessary amount for a rum-apricot mini torte made from scratch with rice flour and honey, eyeing her typical oatmeal walnut cookies and considering hoarding them when Theresa flinches behind the stall counter, recoiling at something behind her.

Instinct tells Lien to whirl, but when she does, all she can see is the quilter at the next table tearing some scrap fabric from an old jumper.

She turns around, money in hand, and raises her brow.

Theresa catches her gaze and purses her lips, taking the money with a frown. She looks like she's stopping herself from saying something something, but the market is fairly slow after breakfast rush, and there isn't anybody behind Lien. These facts probably assist in her decision to speak.

"I had a dream," Theresa states tersely, handing back Lien's change. She crosses her arms just beneath her ample bust, looking down the line of stalls for customers or eavesdroppers. "I was...a shirt. It was weird. Some dude ripped me up."

Lien actually is left speechless, and from her spot on the stool, Franky starts, staring at her sister with wide eyes.

"I mean, I didn't have eyes, or ears, or even nerves, but I got the impression I was a shirt. I touched some guy's flat pecs, and the idea of touching a stranger's nipples freaked me out, so I tried to run. Only I was a shirt, and I couldn't. The best I could manage was like, a wiggle," Theresa sums up, awaiting her families snark.

It doesn't come.

"Are you shitting me?!" Frank shrieks, shooting up from her seat. The bar stool topples over to the hard packed earth, drawing eyes from other patrons and stall clerks. The three girls smile sheepishly, doling out assurance to the curious onlookers, and Franky forces herself to smile as she picks the seat up and puts it back in place.

The moment everyone looks away again, though, she turns to her sister, brimming with energy.

"I need to know if you're messing with me Theresa, because I had a fuckin dream I was a in some dude's fucking head, and he kept screaming at his shirt because he thought it was sentient," she rushes out in a low voice. "I thought I had bad milk before I went to sleep, because he ended up trying to dig me out of his head with his _bare hands._ "

Theresa turns to his sister, looking skeptical. The low-lighting of the stall does her expression no favors, and she looks like a caricature of a person instead of a human being.

"The puns," Lien says after a moment, causing both sisters to look at her. "He asked where your puns where now, I heard him from the tree I was in."

"You had a tree dream?" Franky demands.

"I was a bird in the tree, " Lien corrects. " I saw the man, and the shirt. Took a scrap to make my nest with."

The silence stretches on, and a curious looking man in a dress shirt makes his way over to the stall. Lien obligingly steps back with her bag of goodies hanging off her wrist, letting him agonize over the choices while the sisters put on their best smiles. A few moments pass, and he ends up purchasing some of the honey truffles, and a strawberry-lemon pastry to have with his coffee before venturing away again.

...Which leaves them all wondering the same thing, staring at eachother speculatively. Nobody wants to say anything out loud, because to even voice the thought is absurd. Giving it life in such a form would be having to acknowledge it exists, in some shape or form. It's less real if they allow it to remain separate and individual.

 _The theory of Gradient Reality_ , Lien thinks, looking down at her bag. _The more people experience a thought, idea, or form, the more real it becomes._

"What will be will be," she says after a moment. "To anticipate the unknown is to take a burden upon yourself you weren't meant to carry."

Franky and Theresa don't say anything to this, far too used to Lien's random word vomit. They have had years to know that at least eighty five percent of it is nonsense in the long run, just babble she spouts at the moment without any real intent.

"I have work soon. See you at home?" Lien says again after a moment, focusing on the tangible once more, coming back to herself.

"Maybe," Franky answers, looking contemplative. She slips back onto her stool, placing an elbow on her knee and resting her chin in her hand.

"We got some stuff to take care of back at our place," Theresa clarifies. "We'll try though."

Lien just shrugs. She doesn't want to force them, and she genuinely enjoys having them over. Whatever societal rule said sleepovers ever stop is wrong, because they're still doing it after all this time. Horror movies, junk food, gossip, and all.

"You do you," Lien bids, waving her hand, and they echo her sentiment as she picks her way back to her car.

The idea, however, doesn't stop bothering her as the day wears on. Just because it doesn't have precedent doesn't mean it couldn't occur, and Lien doesn't like entertaining the idea that the dream world could now be preying on her cousins. It's not possessiveness, or fear for their safety, it's simple improbability.

From the sounds of it, they dream shared, but hopefully it was only ever a one time thing. In a few months, perhaps they all can laugh about it and wonder what a unique experience it was, but right now it's unsettling.

Lien...she doesn't know how to word it. The dream world has skewed her a bit, made it hard to do certain things or think in certain ways. She knows most people hardly remember the dreams they have, and she's never heard of anybody having a lifetime of them centered around a separate world.

It's not entirely special though. There is all that _Alice in Wonderland_ nonsense, and there have always been fables and tales about dreams. It's just that this one is so weird, and she feels like anybody who experiences it is going to change.

And that's the thing, she doesn't know _what_ will change, and so she's wary of it.

"What will be will be," she mumbles under her breath, picking up a tray of food to carry out to a customer.

But what will it be?

* * *

 **AN: Dibs on that theory name. All mistakes are mine.**


	4. Granola Bars and Anbu Squads

I do not own Naruto.

* * *

Lien doesn't remember falling asleep.

That, in and of itself, is not too uncommon. It's hard, nearly impossible, to recall the exact moment she falls asleep. In fact, she knows most people can't. Instead, they denote the space of time it theoretically occurred in. It's always a bit of surprise, in between one thought and another, and it just sort of falls over people like a shroud.

She's done a lot of research on sleep. Tons of people have, and she's no certified expert, but she does know a few things about it. She knows that sleep disorders are more common than anybody realizes, and that nobody knows _why_ sleep is needed. Yes, it is known that the body and mind need rest, but not why. Theoretically speaking, the body is a biological machine. In intakes energy in the form of food, parting out ATP and nutrients to help it along. This Adenosine Triphosphate is the currency of life, all the energy creatures need, and as long as the body is always processing it, theoretically, it should be able to stay awake.

Only, that's obviously not so. It's one of those things from the waking world that doesn't really make sense. It's a reason, an explanation, but not really.

(While she's at it, she also wants to ask why consumers are considered the ruling life-form of the planet, when photosynthesis is obviously much more efficient, and flore not only outnumber fauna, but seem to have a whole species dedicated to propagating them in order to survive. They say that humans domesticated plants, but she thinks it might be the other way around.)

Hopefully, Lien is just ignorant, and there is a reason for sleep (and plants). A real reason, as solid and as a super-dense Bose-Einstein condensate.

She wonders these thoughts while she walks, on two feet instead of four or none at all, which is important to note, because it means she has a bipedal form. Human, probably, if the shape of her toes and calves are anything to go by. In fact, they look like her own legs, just on the acceptable side of stubbly. Round thighs and small hands let her know she's herself in this dream. An oddity, but a pleasant one.

The grass and trees are indicative of the dream world though. Tall and wide, sprawling like cypress yet leaved like oaks, she hears them referred to as Hashirama trees by some. She wonders if the people here think that they rule these too, or if they have accepted the arboreal giants as their silent, long lived overlords.

Caught up in her mental ambling, she never notices Franky until the chainsaw in her cousin hands screams to a halt, the engine coughing up blue smoke, the two-cycle burning somewhere inside of , because chainsaws are loud, and it really should have registered as weird in the dream world. Or, weirder.

" _What the fuck,_ " Franky exhales, staring at her surrounding with shock and unease.

"Oh," Lien comments lightly. "Are we dream sharing?"

Franky whirls, wielding the chainsaw like a makeshift weapon, causing Lien to frown. They both know it makes a poor choice for melee device, too bulky and unwieldy by far. The intimidation factor is high, but the movements needed to properly fight are far restricted by the tool. However will one keep their hand on the throttle to spin the chain, and also maintain their dexterity?

"Lien?" Franky demands, staring at her cousin with wide eyes. She's dressed in her summer best, all ragged work shorts and flannel top, and her hair is mussed on the side, as if she was lying down on something. That could just be Franky's unruly hair though, it never quite behaves, and it charms Lien.

"I didn't know you came over," Franky says, trying to make sense of everything. "I was just getting some wood for the furnace, Theresa should have warned me-"

"You're asleep," Lien interrupts, adamant.

Franky laughs awkwardly, looking around them. "Uh, no, I'm not. I'm in the woods, or I thought I was, but I've never seen the trees like this before. Winter could have been so much easier."

The flannel clad woman pauses, placing her hand on her hip. "This is _weird_."

"No, you're dreaming. We're in the dream world, together, and that's a problem," Lien says, trying to get her cousin to focus on the important matter at hand.

Franky laughs again, a bit more unhinged.

"Lien, no. It's noon, I'm not asleep. I was out in the woods, in the middle of cutting down this pine. And now I'm here, with you," she stresses, looking a bit wild. "I swear it. I was nowhere near sleepy, let alone _asleep_."

"You don't remember falling asleep then. No one really does," Lien adds unhelpfully.

Her family member frowns at her, hazel eyes accusing. She pulls the choke back on her chainsaw, just incase, and hefts it to the side with her arm. It's an impressive feat. Chainsaws are terribly heavy.

"Lien, look, seriously, this isn't funny. I don't know how you did this, but we are going back to the house right now," her cousin says, looking distinctly ruffled. She's chewing on her lip like she does when she's particularly nervous.

"I think that's impossible, unless your house is in the dreamworld, and if that's so, we have even bigger problems than I first imagined," Lien snips back, feeling a tiny bit uneasy herself. Franky isn't supposed to be here. It's never happened before, not in all their multiple decades of familyship. That doesn't mean it isn't happening, obviously, because lack of previous history does not exempt future possibilities, but it does mean that things are changing in a pattern that Lien cannot comprehend.

" _Lien_ ," Franky sighs, and Lien is just about to bite out ' _Franky_ ' in that same stressed out tone when a forlorn shout cuts through the air, warbling in a familiar tone.

" _My Granola bars!_ "

The two cousins have enough time to make eye contact with each other, and the same thought travels between them. There's only one person they know with that voice, and they also mentioned food, so a mimic is out. Also, there may be granola bars at stake.

They bolt.

Lien takes the lead, faster in the short term. Franky might be able to double her stamina at times, but Lien can be a speedy, jumpy girl if she wants too. Years of messing around, mimicking things she saw on the track field finally come in handy, and she flits through the undergrowth like a deer, hurdling brambles and logs, ducking around branches and tree trunks.

"Lien!" Franky shouts, but Lien pretends not to hear, because Theresa's granola bars are delicious, and terrible things could be happening to them _at this very moment._

She bursts into the clearing her other cousin is in, ready to fight, but the battle has already been lost. Theresa stands, barefoot, adorned with a stained apron, staring at the baking tray turned upside down on the ground. She still has a rag in her back pocket, and a bottle of honey in her hand.

The granola based treats are little more than clumps in the dirt and grass, already being swarmed with ants, and Lien's heart sinks when she notices that there are dark chocolate and coconut flakes inside of them. The tragedy is heartbreaking.

"What a terrible dream," she whispers, right as Franky catches up, tackling her from behind, searching the clearing for her distressed sister.

"Theresa?!" Franky demands in alarm as the handle of the chainsaw digs into Lien's gallbladder. Her cousin's knee also deems fit to plant itself in her spine, making her wheeze.

"Franky?" Theresa asks, looking up from the lost treasures.

"Get off my back you ox," Rasps Lien, mouth full of dirt and weeds. The younger girl scrambles for purchase on the forest floor, her nails filling with earth as she tugs herself out from underneath her cousin, who shifts just enough to allow it.

"What the hell?" Theresa voices, and Franky nods as Lien huffs, going over to the baking tray, seeing if any bars are salvageable. She's not above eating off the ground in the waking world, and this is all a dream any way. A strange one, but that's on par with what she deals with.

"I know, right?" Franky agrees, recalling her earlier proclamation along the same lines.

"How-?...This isn't our forest," Theresa says haltingly, seemingly finally noticing her surroundings for the first time. She twitches, and doesn't seem to be taking it too well, her shoulders stiffening and breathing picking up pace.

"Lien says we're dreaming, but I'm calling bull, because I was in the woods, and you were obviously baking for market, but now we're here, and this has gone too far," Franky adds, her voice growing in volume and vehemence. Lien would notice that she's shaking, but she's busy trying to brush some dandelion tufts off a cracked piece of snack bar, wondering if she dares.

"This," Theresa says, her voice high pitched, her pupils wide, "This is _impossible. This isn't happening_."

"Depends on the definition of _happening_ ," Lien adds absentmindedly. "I mean, if it occurs in a dream, is it really occurring, or is it only inside your head? Does the fact that it may only be mental make it any less real to you as a person, and how do you feel about outside perspective? It's in the theory, we've talked about it."

"Your theory isn't tangible, Lien! This is happening!" Shouts Franky, agitated. "This isn't a philosophy debate, this is a hallucination! I've gone mad!"

"Hurtful," Lien comments without heat, stuffing a chunk of bar inside her mouth. Beside the grittiness of the dirt she wasn't able to get off, and an ant or two, it's still good. It's tasty and warm, the honey gone gooey and sticking to her fingers. The chocolate is just this side of melted, immensely rich, and accented by the earthiness of the coconut. _Classic_ Theresa granola bar, just a few ingredients made into a masterpiece.

"I.." said baker and student stutters out, panting for air. "I...ca- no. Nope. This isn't- _This can't be_."

"Dream sharing," Lien mumbles around a mouthful of food.

"WE WEREN'T SLEEPING," Roars Franky, unhappy with her cousin's inability to take things seriously for a second. This is life and death. Where is home? Where is anything? _What are they going to do, oh God-_

Lien doesn't even consider that possibility. Of course they are sleeping, and Lien had either conceptualized her cousins into existing in her dream world, constructing avatars and forms to suit their roles in a mockery of the waking world, or their consciousness were joined irrevocably by long term exposure to one another, only capable of doing so long after adolescence, when the brain was still malleable and would be crushed by such a venture.

(Or whatever.)

"These are good," Lien comments.

"I...I don't...," Theresa rambles nonsensically. "You're eating food off the ground, and this isn't right _. I was a shirt-_ "

"Lein," Frank warns, knowing the source of their trouble.

" _-I touched a man's nipple. Oh God, I don't even know his name-_ "

"Go with it," Lien mumbles around her food, picking a piece from her tooth. She wonders how long she'll get to stay this shape before the dream world changes it. Will she be able to fly with honey covered wingtips, or will her hands turn into paws that she can lick clean?

"This _isn't rea_ l," Franky stresses. "This is a _hallucination_ , a _terrible trip_ , and-"

"Doesn't matter if it's real or not, fact is that you are experiencing it. Your perception is telling you it exists, and therefore, you must react accordingly, because the only other options are to fight amongst ourselves, somehow fight the dream, or die. Maybe there's other ways, I really haven't figured it out," Lien clips back, becoming annoyed. Usually, this place is whimsical or dark, and the stress she receives is from life and death situations, not societal explanations or cultural standards.

She's tried for years to explain it to her cousins, she thought they got it. She thought that they knew, as much as anybody who didn't experience it could know, but they….they keep trying to reject the dream world, and that doesn't work. It doesn't work because then they will start selectively rejecting realities, and end up nonfunctional inside the waking world, only able to cope with assistance.

That will throw their whole dynamic off. How will they cope if they all are non-functional?

Franky seems to slump at this, retreating back and sitting down to stare at her chainsaw. The wind rakes through the trees while Theresa shudders, and staring down at the bars, panting for breath. Lien thinks it might be some sort of shock.

She doesn't know what to do, so she doesn't try to do anything. She exists in a stasis, her mouth tasting of earthy, bittersweet chocolate, and rich coconut. The sweetness of the honey coats her tongue, but she finds she's no longer hungry. She's frustrated, marginally, also also uneasy, because this is that change she was worried about.

How is she supposed to react, she wonders, playing with an ant glued to her finger by bee secretions. Should she comfort Theresa? Can she even comfort somebody facing a sudden, incredibly stressful crisis of such a magnitude? Will talking soothe Franky, who looks angry and wild, as if she can tear down the trees, rip up the grass, and dismantle the dream world itself?

Uncomfortable with her dilemma, Lien stands. She has no idea what to do, and she could make it even worse. There are too many options, so she's gonna just go. She'll come back later, maybe.

Feet solidly beneath her, and sticky hands wiped on her shorts, she begins walking. The direction doesn't really matter in the end because she just wants out of the situation. Her cousins are capable people, they'll figure it out, and if they don't, well, they'll all wake up at some point. Sure, it might seem like weeks or months here, but it's only ever been a single night's sleep in the real world.

And yet, the dream world conspires against her, because the moment she goes to step out of the clearing, a blade edged trowel plants itself in between her spread toes.

The sound of it sinking into the earth -a dull, solid thump- draws the attention of both her cousins. Franky lifts her head to stare at the trenching tool with horrified bewilderment, and Theresa looks on uncomprehendingly, still in shock.

"Is that a Kunai?" Franky asks, her voice pitched high.

Lien hums, stepping away from the sharpened edges carefully. She feels the sting of a fresh cut on the skin stretching between her phalanges, and she wiggles them curiously.

"The tree-walkers are watching," she declares nonchalantly, secretly more at ease. She can deal with this.

"What?"

As if summoned by her words, the shadows melt from the boughs, and masked faces stare down at them, each a painted caricature of a demon. Some stand upright on the wide branches far above, but others dangle unnaturally, sticking by their witchy feet, their cloaks still draped along their bodies as if to spite gravity. Others watch horizontally, jutting straight out like spring growths, and she thinks their core strength must be incredible.

Shadow eyes, as dark as india ink, stare out at them. The light hits a few just right, and she glimpses monolid eyes, like the parody of a human's, but they _aren't_. The Masked tree-walkers aren't as evolved as their more human like cousins. They are too quiet, too still, and though they have all the right limbs, they haven't quite gotten the sentiment behind people.

Or, _maybe_ , she has it all backward, and tree-walkers become the masked shades. Maybe it's a metamorphosis, and they lose themselves to the hive, roaming around foliage and greenery, becoming shadows of what they once were. She wonders if life in the collective is peaceful, or if there is turmoil shared amongst them all. Are they like ants? Do they war? Or maybe they are more like Canadian Garter snakes in spring, emerging in hoards for brief moments before dispersing again. Buffalo, maybe-? Bees?

" _Lien_ ," hisses Franky, sounding alarmed. "Lien, get back here. Get away from them."

"It's alright," Lien soothes, placidly watching them watch her. They seems to be waiting for something, and she smiles calmly.

"Lien-"

"You're trespassing," one of them states, the tone bland and androgynous.

She cocks her head to the side, curious. Perhaps they were waiting specifically to interrupt Franky, which is rude.

"I'm sorry," she apologizes, bowing her head the slightest bit. Her mother and father taught her manners. Just because they aren't human, and this is a dream, doesn't mean she's going to forget them.

For a moment, it seems that the phantoms have no idea what to do. They look to each other for information, and she feels a little sad. Once they evolve, or de-evolve, or summer comes, they'll lose that hivemind of theirs, and really, it seems like a useful thing to have.

She wishes she could use it.

"Why are you here?" Asks another, this voice a little more feminine. Lien wonders is that means they are closer to becoming a regular tree walker, or if the tree-walker is slowly being integrated into this colony.

"I'm afraid we're all asleep," she answers. "But we'll wake up. Time is a bit funny here though, so it might take a little while. No more than half a year at max."

"Half a year?!" Franky exclaims, sounding terrified. "Lien, what are you saying? What are _they_ saying? I've never heard anything like it."

Lien turns, appalled.

"Franky, they're speaking perfectly fine."

"No. They aren't. That's gibberish, I swear to you-"

"Enough code!" Declares one of them, and they sound anxious, nervous even.

"Sorry," Lien says, even though she's not. She's found that it appeases people, makes them more likely to listen to her. In a way, it could be considered lying, but not really, because she is sorry. Just sorry they are upset and that they are confused, not apologetic over any of her own actions.

Also, _manners_.

"It seems that my cousins don't understand you," she states slowly. "Which makes sense because this is my dream, but since they are sharing it, they should understand as well. Unless, of course, they aren't my cousins, and are constructs of my mind to take place the places of my cousins in order to relieve some sort of desire or longing I have inside of me, most likely to not be alone in my-"

Lien rambles on, and the Anbu stare at one another. The longer she speaks, the less sense she makes. The words are in the correct language, and it seems like someone should comprehend it, but the sentence structure and contexts are all wrong.

They hesitate to apprehend the trio, because the situation is so outlandish. The one that speaking to them is outfitted more for the privacy of her own home, barefoot and wearing little more than shorts and a plain shirt. One seems to have been transported directly from a kitchen of some sort, caught in a fit, her apron spotted with flour stains, and the last carries some sort of strange weapon, looking cornered and aggressive.

"-which can stem from an isolated childhood with family as a constant social circle. That is, of course, if you buy into the theory of nurture over nature, and deem my life experiences to shape me more heavily than my genetic code. There could be a correlation drawn to my own tendencies and my father's, but as we all know, correlation isn't causation, and it could be just a coincidence. I bet if I had Franky run the statistics, I could make a graph for an easy to understand visual representation of the data, but then I'm right back at the beginning again. Is Franky Franky, or is she a mimic my brain has made up?"

Frog stumbles forward, no more than a half centimeter, but it draws the eyes of the team leader. She bets Frog did his very best to try and listen to every word of that, and tried follow the logic of it. No doubt there's going to be trouble in the Nara compound tonight. The debates in that family can get out of hand.

"Lien," hisses the one wielding a strange weapon, and the squad leader connects the dots. It must be the girl's name, and oddly enough it sounds familiar. It drags up memories of a new recruit, looking for someone. What mask was he assigned again? Cougar? Lynx?

She babbles something else, and the strange woman leading them cocks her head around to listen to her. She appears frustrated at being interrupted, but then a calm, harmonious smile overtakes her face. The plain girl turns back to the group cheerily.

"Nevermind," she placates. "Franky says she's going to throw up soon, and when she wakes, she's going to call us and wake us up too."

The aggressive one makes some choking noise, her whole body heaving so hard she loses her grip on the weapon, and it thumps to the ground. It's a rookie move nobody above chunin would make, which is comforting, but the sound she creates are wretched. She gags again, and again, and the third time she vanishes completely. No smoke, no noise. She there one moment and gone the next, and Frog has to wonder if he really saw her at all.

The apron clad woman watches with horror, snapping her head around to babble something at the other girl, but her friend gives her the same smile she gave them. Like she understands the universe, can comprehend far more than any mortal mind was meant to.

The cooking woman screams, shouts something in the strange code language, but then she shimmers, calling out her friends name again. It's a touching scene of team loyalty, one refusing to leave the other behind, desperate to linger even when she's clearly displaying symptoms of shock. But the technique being used is strong, and the apron wearing teammate flickers, her form going fuzzy around the edges, collapsing in on itself, until it too is gone.

"Cease-!" Shouts the squad leader, but it's too late, and they are left with one, one who is unraveling in the strangest way they've ever seen. It's a jutsu so unlike the other two, and she just...changes. Her skin turns blotchy in places, the color leaching and fading away, and she begins to mimic the scene around her. Her toes turn to blades of grass, her legs meld together to become a tree trunk, solid and strong.

"It's alright," she soothes as her arms sprout leaves, her fingers twisting into branches and boughs. Bark crawls up her skin as she morphs, eating away at her flesh. A pale plum blossom unfurls from her hair, moving upward to dance in the light despite the fact that it's summer, not early spring. Bafflingly enough, the wobbling chirp of a bush warbler cuts through the air, as if called to complete the scene.

"It's just a dream."

-And then she's gone, a sapling in her place. There's nothing but crumbled ration bars in the dirt and a strange weapon lying around to reminds them all that it was real.

The Anbu squad has never understood anything less, and they comprehend that they know not. In that moment, they are harmonious, without benevolence, righteousness, or proprietary. They just are, as the sapling is, and life continues on.

* * *

 _Thus it was that when the Dao was lost, its attributes appeared; when its attributes were lost, benevolence appeared; when benevolence was lost, righteousness appeared; and when righteousness was lost, the proprieties appeared._ \- **Lao Tzu, The Dao de Jing**


	5. In The Now

I do not own Naruto.

* * *

The art of being does not get a proper noun. It is not an actual style, or a path. It's not even a true direction.

It just _is_ , and that's the point.

The art is something Lien has yet to manage, let alone master. It's not a simple thing, the art.

(Actually, art is seldom simple at all, proper noun or not.)

Back on track though, existing, or just being, is hard. Her mind, as all human minds, tends to wander about, following plot lines and patterns, attempting to find correlations and data sets inside everything that will assist her in managing a thousand hypothetical situations. It likes to worry about the future a lot, then set out goals and directives, as if there is a set formula to something as esoteric and specialized as success.

That's another problem; the fundamental definition of success. Many will equate it with financial prosperity and wealth, others with the propagation of the line, and others still with attempt to correlate it with completion duty. It's forever intertwined with culture and societal standards, which are whimsical and ever-changing. One may say that Kublai Khan, leader of the Mongolian huns and conquer of vast swaths of China, is successful. The same person will say that the Gautama Buddha, an ascetic and sage, is also successful, despite their life quite possibly being the antithesis of Khan's. Many more examples could be used, and then graded on some non-existent scale, hung up alongside the lines of relative morality.

Lien wants to define success as a happy, fulfilling life where she continues to learn up until her death, gaining wisdom, intellect, and joy. This is, of course, is allowing for adventure and goodwill as well, leaving the world just slightly more accepting and understanding than she found it. Possibly kinder too, if she can manage.

Unfortunately she's also biased by her culture, and her families viewpoints. She has been ingrained with the desire to gain some renown and wealth, perhaps elevate her family's standing in the eyes of society, and also be widely loved and accepted. But these are earthly ties, which should be unfavorable to some extent, because those are not _being_. Standing among people is fickle and ever changing, and wealth, while extremely helpful, does not actually equate satisfaction. But they are attributes she would like to assemble, has been told to strive for, as if she's filing some heavenly resume, or filling out a recipe for a happy life.

She's not. The equation for fulfillment and happiness is much more abstract than that, and yet part of her insist that she should just buckle down and do as the world tells her.

The point is - _the point is_ \- just being is _hard_. Everyday she has desires, wants and demands that distract her from what she already has. It is difficult to gain satisfaction from the moment, because she worries. She worries about the future, and how she will live. She has concerns about her desirability as a partner and a friend. She distresses over her emotions, her poor grip on reality, her standing in the eyes of others, and so many other things.

She wants to transcend those things, to overcome the forces acting on her, but that too is a desire. She is not focused on existing if she is yearning for a possible, (kinda improbable) future where she ascends above mortal concerns.

Also, it sounds kinda pretentious. 'Not focusing on desires' and 'transcending outside forces'. It just feels kinda arrogant, which is off putting.

Liens phone buzzes, dragging her out of her quiet contemplation. She can already hazard a guess to what it says, but she reads it anyway, just to be safe.

' _Take me back. That chainsaw was a month's paycheck_ '

Outwardly, she doesn't do much, but inside, she slips right out of the now and into uncomfortable guesswork, reacting to the forces her environment has provided as stimuli. This event is unprecedented in so many ways, and it makes her anxious, makes her gut roil and churn inside of her.

The dream share is a problem in and of itself, but not the biggest. Sure, her cousins might need a little time to adjust, considering the blurry line between both worlds, but they would get there. It would happen, and then they could go around gallivanting together. It could even be nice, having a group to explore the dream worlds with, and then when situations became scary, at least Lien could say that she wasn't alone. She would help them like they helped her, calmly reminding them which world was which, and the first time one of them was mortally injured in the dream world, yet woke up fine here, she could soothe them with tea and distract them with comfort a cheesy movies, the same way they did for her.

Only, it wasn't just a dream share, because both Franky and Theresa adamantly deny falling asleep. It's hard to prove to one way or another, but the fact they protest resting at all is alarming, because that means it might just begin to happen at anytime, and Lien can't handle that. She has no idea how to go about sliding into the dream world, and then back again. The thought is so ominous, so fear inducing-

She switches tracks. The objects. Lien has never transferred anything in between worlds. True, she never fell asleep with things in her hand, but if they aren't sleeping, then it doesn't matter. The fact is the chainsaw and baking sheet are gone, nowhere to be found at all. Franky even filed a report on it, just in case the they turn up.

(True, it might seem a bit much, but good chainsaw's are very expensive, and Franky covets the good tools she has. She does hard work, and it becomes ten times harder without proper appliances to use. She's probably on her back up saw, a poor substitute with a faulty choke and a habit of throwing the chain.)

Her cousins are...angry, and Lien is bad at dealing with anger in the real world. She would solve it if she could, but she doesn't know how. It's not like they blame her, but she feels obligated to try something, anything at all. She's the one who has been dreaming for her whole life, she should have some modicum of control.

Something oblong and ugly twists, and she feels self-deprecation well up. She wants to live in the now, wants to just appreciate this day off and take life as it comes, but it whispers insidiously in her ear, dripping hate like venom.

'Useless,' it chirps, pretty as you please. ' Pathetic.'

The loathing is cruel and ugly. It doesn't take the variables into consideration, the weights of her wants or desires. It just hurts to hurt, as it always does.

Lien stills, trying to quiet herself, staring out the window listlessly. The weight of the phone is a soft reminder in her hand, the smooth plastic a strange comfort to her. The birds chirp, and the bugs hum cacophonously outside, and she tries to focus on that instead of the troubles in her mind.

There's no way to please this feeling, she's found. No way to make it go away. No matter how much she attempts to mold herself to its wants, it is never enough. No grade, no job, no conversation or journey is ever enough. It demands she be prettier, be smarter, be better than who she is. It rots inside of her, ugly and cold, stating cut downs as if they are facts.

(And they might be. She holds no illusions. In the great scheme of things, Lien is small. Very small, and she has little ambition to become bigger in ways that are supposed to matter. She has no longing for a career as it is conventionally defined, no thirst for a partner or family. She simply wants to live her days, savoring the satisfaction of a laugh, and learning. She always wants to learn.)

She does not know why the feeling still lingers, festering inside. Why does it spew hate when she already come to terms with her mediocrity, and accepted her own sub-par existence? Why does it cloud her mind with discontentment when she only wishes to accept?

Focus on the now, she reminds herself, her fingers running along the edges of her screen. Colors burst into existence, a tranquil scene of a river boat resting on a gravel embankment, and the times shines out in solid white text. She unlocks her phone idly, re-reading the text message staring back, her thumb hovering on the edge of the text box.

Carefully, she presses down, her digit picking out the characters with practiced ease.

' _Want to have a sleepover?_ '

* * *

Lien goes to their house. It's not that far away, because their parents wanted to live close to each other after they all moved. Something about familiar faces in strange places.

Their families used to live in a much more populated area, closer to the coast, and closer to the rest of the clans.

(And some people may think those things are dead; that a clan is something from olden times, but Lien will tell them they are wrong. There's still a neighborhood overrun by her mother's sisters and their children, and she can trace her family tree all the way back to the fourteenth century. The clan lives, on her mother's and father's side, and she can find it's branches all over the world these days. She's related to people in Brazil, in the Netherlands, China and Papua.

No, clans aren't dead, they've just changed to fit the times.)

Now though, Lien and her cousins (her closest cousins, quite possibly her favorites) live far away from where they used to. It's not completely rural, but not urbanized either. It's something stuck in between, with bustling business and crowded streets in the center, and twenty minute out from desolate woods and isolated farmland.

She ventures somewhere in this juxtaposition of development and wilderness to find the house they own, and the sleepover goes a this reality demands. Which is to say they go about their normally scheduled business with a tense air of anticipation. Franky spends most of her time ruminating on something, and typing increasingly vague questions about quantum physics into search engines, hoping to somehow learn centuries worth of material in a few days time.

Theresa is a deathly sort of quiet, her face determined and stony. The baker pours them all tea in silence after they eat.

It tastes like Marshmallow root, valerian, and diphenhydramine.

Within thirty minutes of brushing her teeth, Franky is out like a light, snoring away, and Theresa is tumbling after. Lien can feel her cousins brew bubbling away in her veins, and she wonders why she knows the taste of over the counter sleep aids so well when she hasn't taken them in years. It's a lingering bitterness that hangs on her tongue, a heaviness in her limbs, pulling her to the ground, then through it, into the dream world.

She tumbles through the cosmos, and her body is pulled by the forces of all universes combined. It cannot stand such things, and it melts away, ripped to shreds so fast her brain can't even register pain. She becomes little more than a thoughtform, a fluttering collection of impressions and ideas that contorts into light, and flickers through the cracks of creation, carrying the history of creation in her oscillating wavelength of electromagnetic forces. She is a beam of light, transcending space as a universe simultaneously combines and separates.

And she it seems to her she travels forever and no time at all, little more than a concept, because that's the only way one can travel through universes. The physical form is left behind, and only the conceptual self may go.

(It's the same as dreaming, where the body rests, but the mind always wanders.)

She lands in the new reality, the dream world, and flesh molds itself to conceptual form, cradling it inside. Physics contain universal forces, binding them to biological form, and her travel ends.

In between one breath and another, she's reborn as a ghost.

And….that's strange, because she has a body, she has a form that isn't quite her own. It has two legs and two arms; ten fingers and ten toes. Eyes, lips, and a petal soft mouth too, but she's a ghost. She is _Ne_ , without name, without family or home. She is nothing, and she knows this like she knew the numbers on the outside of her test tube.

Only, she's not nothing and this head-space is familiar, even though the body has grown.

' _Are we nowhere yet?_ ' she asks, and the body jolts, as if noticing her for the very first time. She feels neurons fire and hormones release, and she listens to his thoughts whir.

' _Not real,_ ' whispers one, while another screams for the tool to empty it's head, and a third, nearly silent, speaks in the language of rustling tree leaves.

' _Always real, never real. Doesn't matter_ ,' she replies, curiously lifting and arm to look at it.

The boy with a forest stretching forever inside his dreams jerks the arm back down in alarm. She didn't mean to scare him, she just wanted to see how big his hands are now, but he's panicking. His thoughts race, and their heart picks up speed.

' _Compromised_ ,' he diagnosis. ' _Have to tell Danzo, accept elimination as an operative. Can't compromise the rest of Ne_ -'

' _Is Danzo the name of the one from before?_ ' she asks, and this time he flinches with his whole body. She can feel it, because she's sharing his body, and together they tumble off the bed they were resting on.

"Operative!" barks a voice as they struggle.

Lien lets him have control of all the limbs, because he's had them the longest, and should know how they work. She doesn't want to fall again.

He stands straight, his spine stiff and his arms by his side as a figure in a blank mask glides closer with all the unearthly grace of the hiveminded. Lien is surprised to see them, and she realizes that this is a nest. A hive of tree-walkers and their counterparts, all in varying stages of change.

Which means that little boy she met, all human and afraid, underwent some sort of metamorphosis. Now he's one of them.

Only… not really, because she's part of him right now, and he feels human. He's confused and agitated, tinged with fear and defaulting to trained responses, but human. There's no hivemind connection, no great shared consciousness. It's just him and her inside here.

"Report," barks the taller, fully grown masked shade. The boy acquiesces without pause.

"I-" he starts, confused, because there hasn't been an ' _I_ ' in so long. It's always been 'this operative' or his assigned number. Sometimes, he'll take on an animal name to match his ever changing mask, but never _'I_ '. Not since….since before the labs, maybe.

The tall one stares down, silent and looming. After a moment they sign for him to follow, and he suddenly understands that he has messed up. He used the wrong term, out loud, in front of a commanding officer.

Lien is starting to be confused as well, but then she realizes that this is the dreamworld, and it doesn't make sense. It just _is_ , and trying to instill order on it never works.

So she lets the boy control everything, remaining quiet but observant as the tall one leads listens, and then begins to lead them out of the sleeping barracks into a grand underground network of tunnels and caves. She watches and listen through his eyes and ears, using his senses to experience the world.

And that's how she knows it isn't real, because you can only ever experience reality through your own perception. Here, she's sharing his, feeling the quiet hum in his thoughts and riding the need to fulfill orders he has.

It's strange, so very strange, to be two people at once, and nobody at all. She's lien, and she is dreaming. She is him, and he's reporting a defect and possible information leak. They are nobody, a quiet ghost that exists only to support the hive as a whole.

And they are looking for a chainsaw. Or, well, she is keeping an eye out for a chainsaw, but the colony structure is huge. It's vast and complex, with all the levels of a termite mound, and all the order of a beehive. She's more and more impressed with the masked shadows every second. She thought, originally, that they simply existed like bugs, thriving off a hivemind and living in harmony. But now she's learning that they can take human children and turn them into tree walkers, and there's some sort of hierarchy at play. The tall one is obviously higher ranking than the boy, and according to his thoughts they are going to see the queen.

' _We're all human_ ,' the boy snaps at her inside his head. ' _There is no queen._ '

She doesn't contradict him, but Lien does doubt. They may be human for the given definition in the dreamworld, but they aren't human like she knows the term. Human is a species of West African apes that evolved from their primate ancestors and spread across the globe. They are adaptable, resourceful, and endlessly wonderful creatures, but she's yet to see an unassisted human walk perpendicular to the ground for longer than a few seconds, and these guys do it all the time.

' _It's chakra_ ,' he tries to explain before reprimanding himself and trying to isolate himself from her, focusing on the number of steps they are taking. It's not going to work, and also, that's another term that's incompatible, because what he knows of chakra and what she knows are two vastly different things.

Their musings come to an end when the tall one directs them through a doorway, waiting till they pass to shuts it closed behind them.

Inside, a man with a bandaged face stares forward, his single visible eye seeming to know all. He's not quite that old, merely sixty or seventy, and beside all the bandages, he seems to be in good health. Somewhat of a dour mood, judging by the look on his face, but healthy. He's probably a very respectable queen of the hive, inspiring absolute order from the boy she resides in.

He opens his mouth to speak, and the boys braces himself, but the words that tumble out make little sense to him.

However, they make lots of sense to Lien.

"Have you seen any granola bars?" he demands in a heavily accented voice, as if something is rooting around in his mind, trying to learn the language by copying the patterns in his brain.

"Sir?" the boy asks, stunned.

"Not on your life" he retorts disdainfully, "Just have a penis at the moment. Not for long, I hope."

The boy fails to comprehend that statement in any shape or form. In fact, it sends him retreating into the depths of his mind in confusion and fear, giving Lien the chance to take the reins for a moment.

"Franky?" she asks through the boy's mouth, and the man's eyes flash. He gives her a reassuring grin that reminds her of clever words and the taste of drugged tea. Belatedly she realizes that she was too fixated on the chainsaw, and she forgot the other thing they left behind. She was out of harmony with the now, so focused on finding one thing that was lost, she forgot the other one.

It's not Franky exerting control over that body, but Theresa.

"Lien," her cousin sighs through the old man's dry lips, sounding relieved. "Thank god. Maybe now you can explain some of this."

The boy sinks further into himself, and Lien wishes she could follow. She can try, but she doesn't know how successful that endeavor will end up. After all, the dream world never made much sense.

(And if the task takes all her attention, drawing her away from her worries and fears, throwing her into the present, than at least she is being. At least, for the moment, she is embodying the art, if only in a dream.)


	6. The Fifth Force

I do not own Naruto.

* * *

According to basic physics, as they are currently understood, there are four fundamental forces that make up the universe.

Gravity, for one, plays a huge part in the cosmos. It is the natural phenomenon where energy (and therefore mass) is brought toward others thing made of energy (and mass).

Electromagnetism, something that was once thought to be two separate forces, is actually a word that describes a relationship between electrically charged particles. The third, known as Weak Nuclear Force, deals with the radioactive decay of subatomic particles, and nuclear fission.

The fourth, and final force, is known as Strong Nuclear Force, ensures the stability of all matter.

Now, Lien is no physicist. She's not particularly versed in the language of the universe -aka, math- and she has only a moderate level of education. She'll be the first to admit that she's not exactly a credible source on matters of ...well, anything but her own individual experiences, she supposes.

 _But_ she might hesitantly say that there is, perhaps, a fifth force.

And yes, better people than her have proposed this same thing. They have searched again and again for that mysterious fifth force in the universe. They have looked into things like telepathy, and the dubious subjects of psi-energies, but Lien thinks that maybe they went way too far, way too fast. It's not quite as esoteric as those things.

The fifth force, in her completely unfounded opinion, is consciousness.

And therein lies the trouble.

Because consciousness is so hard to define, to explain in a quantifiable way. It's hard to observe, let alone calculate, and fitting her bastard amalgamation of psychology and biology into a field as rigid as physics is almost abhorrent, deplorable to minds much grander than hers.

She understands why. Of course she does. Breaking down consciousness into a palatable, usable scientific term or equation is far above her own capabilities, and proposing it as the fifth force of the universe is nothing short of arrogant without any of those things to back it up.

But here she is, doing just that.

She likes Michio Kaku's definition of consciousness the most. That is, she defines consciousness as understanding one's position in space (physically), perceiving one's relationships to others (culture, society, and nature), and capable running hypothetical simulations (which may be restricted to higher thought, she doesn't know.)

With this, consciousness becomes less of an abstract, general term, and becomes a tiny bit more measurable. Only, the measurements for this system haven't been invented yet, and the definition isn't even hers. She's piggy backing off someone else's theory, and warping it around.

(Which may be theoretical science in a nutshell. But again, that's a bit pretentious.)

How then, one may ask, is consciousness the fifth force?

To which Lien would answer 'consciousness can be observed regularly acting, exerting itself on the world and reality around it.'

It can be sensed, constantly, like a universal law. Everything with a consciousness is constantly interacting with the other forces around it. From the first fish, with only the first level of consciousness, that interacted with its environment with regards to the things in the space around it, to the grand architect that uses their understanding of forces like friction and gravity to build great bridges, allowing them to act with greater efficiency with the others around them. Consciousness becomes inseparable from reality and the forces of physics because it is constantly adhering to them, and utilizing them, to shape reality.

It would be simple to say that consciousness can be measured by exactly that; the changes it enacts on the reality around it, but then reality must have a solid shape to begin with. It must be accurately defined for it to be used in a test.

But, according to her Theory of Gradient Reality, it's relative to perception and individual experience. It's half paradoxical in nature, because reality is ever changing and flowing, very real one moment and not so much the next.

So, consciousness become less quantifiable, less testable, and reality becomes fluid again.

* * *

"Lien," Theresa interrupts after two hours of listening to her ramble, still stuck inside the body of an old man. "None of this is explaining how we are here."

"No, look," Lien says, lifting her hand -or rather, the hand of the boy she is currently inhabiting- "Stick with me here. I'm trying to establish consciousness as as a universal force, because in my theory, when we dream, we travel universes, not in our physical forms -which are converted to energy- but as a conscious."

Theresa gives her a stare that is severely underwhelmed. She knows what Lien is trying to say. She's been listening to Lien say it twelve different ways fr hours now.

"If we travel as a conscious, then why did we have our bodies last time, and why did the chainsaw and baking tray travel with us?" she asks pointedly.

"Energy and matter are locked in an endless cycle of conversion, back and forth. When we travel, because we are traveling through space and time, we have to be converted to energy to withstand the force of it all, and then when we arrive, sometimes that energy converts back into matter, taking on physical forms that they are most familiar with. However, sometimes due to unseen variables, the energy doesn't convert right, and we assimilate whatever form is easiest for our consciousness to inhabit with minimal amount of conversion," Lien postulates vaguely.

"Hang on, are you saying that I'm commandeering an old man's body because it was easiest for my consciousness to inhabit without losing energy-slash-matter?" Theresa asks.

"Maybe," Lien agrees. "Maybe there's resonance going on as well, where a percentage of the atoms that make up his structure are exactly like the ones you have in the waking world, and that why your consciousness chose that form; because it was harmony on a level neither of us can comprehend without doctoral degrees in theoretical physics."

"Lien, at some point in time, I distinctly remember being a t-shirt, not an old man, and I'm pretty sure you were a bird, not a boy. So why the changes?" Theresa rebuttals.

"Okay, well, there's a spectrum then, relative to time and space, and how much energy it took for our consciousness to come here," she amends, wondering if there is an equation she can use to explain this all. She's sure it would be one of those calculus ones, with the greek alphabet mixed into it, and sometimes english letters as well for no reason at all.

"And the language? Because last time, I sure couldn't understand it, but now I do," Theresa says.

"You're in a natives grey matter, sharing neuro pathways. I think your mind might be mimicking them, which means, over time, as you re-trace the neural paths, you might come to learn the language," Lien theorizes, grabbing an explanation out of her ass.

Theresa's look says she knows exactly what Lien is doing.

The younger girl fidgets in her seat, and the host body tells her that it is the incorrect action to take. That the old man in front of her expects better, but Lien quiets him and assures him it will be all right.

' _It will not be_ ,' the boy replies. ' _If I know you are here, he will know she is in there. This is an invasion, a takeover, foreigners from-_ '

' _Shhh_ ,' she replies mentally. ' _It's just a dream._ '

Something well up inside the boy's memory - _a test tube, a strange forest that stretches on forever, a warm hand in his_ \- but Lien is too distracted to focus on it. She's trying to figure out what Theresa wants from her, and she suspects it's some sort of answer. Only, Lien doesn't know. She has her theories and guesses, but she's not sure. Nothing is sure in this world.

"You know what, Lien?" Theresa asks, breaking the silence.

"What Theresa?"

"I don't like this."

Lien snorts, the serious atmosphere broken by the simple yet heartfelt statement.

"I'm serious. I really don't like this. My joints hurt, I have bits hanging in weird places, I'm pretty sure I have something inside my limbs that should not be there, there's another person inside my head who is very angry, and this world ate my best baking tray. My definetly female cousin is staring at me through an adolescent boy's body, so jaded by the oddness of her situation she's mastered a frightening zen, and my sister is nowhere to be seen. She's probably getting chased by people who manipulate gravity and throw knives. Or she could be a plate. That's how weird this is," Theresa says calmly, folding her hands in front of her.

Lien doesn't reply, she doesn't need too. Her brain hardly takes into account how strange this is anymore. Cultural status quos, typical scenarios- those things are arbitrary, as fickle as her own understanding of the universe. The only constant is change.

"How do we make it stop?" Theresa asks. "Have you ever found a way?"

"No," Lien answers, because there is no forcing it. She has tried many times in her longer stays to wake up. Pain does not do it. Changing shape doesn't help. Dieing leaves her in stranger places still. There is no surety here.

"We'll find a way then," her cousin says, and Lien thinks she may be trying to comfort herself.

"It's not so bad, Theresa. It'll be okay. It's just a dream after all."

Theresa doesn't answer her this time, staring at her in silence. Lien keeps saying that, and she wonders how many times she had to tell herself that to believe it. Wonders if she really believes it at all.

* * *

"We have to find Franky," Theresa informs her later as they walk the halls of the bunker together, old-man hive-queen and young-boy soldier. Nobody bothers them, not really, because Theresa is wearing the body of the hive queen, and nobody upsets the top breeder.

(Or, according to the mind Lien is sharing, the top recruiter. Danzo, as he is known here, doesn't produce the populace of drones so much as he maintains it.)

"She'll show up, if she came at all," Lien assure her. The halls around them are grand in thier infrastructure, winding and cavernous. There are stairways and paths that lead into small sub-tunnels and underground halls where the colony can train and learn in masse, each one working to produce a greater whole. There is electricity here, but it is sparse and intersped with burning sconces, a mismatch of old tech and new.

Theresa scowls, her lips turning down on her wrinkled face. For a second she truly looks to be the old man she is wearing, all stern lines and stressed skin wrapped in gauze, but she isn't Danzo anymore than Lien is- (' _Thirty Seven, that was the number on my tank. Here they call me Shodaime's tool or Feline_ ')- the boy who dreams of forests.

"Do you think she's wearing someone or-?"

Lien hmms noncommittally, a bit bothered by the phrasing of that. They aren't wearing someone else's skin so much as they are living their lives, just for a little bit. The other person is still inside, sometimes screaming, sometimes crying, sometimes terrified, but Lien experiences this all along with them. They are one, until they become two again. She knows what they do, and they know what she does...to some extent, at least.

"You're pushing too hard, let it happen naturally," Lien advises distantly. " Time is malleable, and there is no date to keep or expectation to meet. Enjoy the caves."

"Lien, we are in a secret underground fortress home to a military force. Like, SS, or secret police. They are doing heinous things to people of all ages, according to this old farts memories. I want to get my sister and wake up. Short of that, I want us all together. It's dangerous here," Theresa intones seriously.

"It's not so bad. Before this, there was an era of continent wide warfare. I once spent weeks as a farmer's daughter, living under the thumb of the shinobi. Some were nice, some not, and life was very uncertain. I made a friend and they strangled me to death in the henhouse," Lien comments offhandedly.

Theresa gapes at her. Lien frowns a bit herself, puzzled.

"Or was that the future? I don't know. Like I said, time here is malleable."

The two continue in silence, making their way upward to the surface at an idle pace, looking like two males sharing a quiet, solemn moment. In reality, Theresa is trying to comprehend death and not death while Lien clets her mind float free of itself, her skull echoing with a quiet static that reminds her of silence. No thought, no particular emotions, just observing her surroundings.

They make it further up than that, faced with a door that seems familiar to the both of them. It leads upward into a structure of some kind, the wooden boards old and creaky beneath their feet, the walls a plain plaster. Outside, noise pours in, and harsh sunlight streams through the windows.

"The Hokage mountain will tell us when we are," Lien says serenely, blinking back tears at the change in shading.

Theresa doesn't answer immediately, looking out the window contemplatively. She makes quiet the study in the lighting, an old stooped male full of secrets, his lone eye troubled, his shoulders weary from the weight of his work.

"Alright," she sighs after a moment, her voice worn and tired.

Lien leads them outward still, going past the security in the safe house, blending in with ease. Theresa, it seems, has adopted the demeanor of a harmless old man, and together they walk until the hard packed earth greets their sandals, the warm Konoha night seeping into their skin. It's a marked difference from the chill of the underground complex of the hive mind, and people here are more organic. The talk and whisper, going about their lives in the same way many do. Though style may be different, and accents and language change, day to day life is eerily similar across the worlds.

"Four faces, but the fourth is not so new. The stone is weathered," Lien states, her head turned upward, peering at the mountain looming in the distance. It's not the earliest she has been, nor the latest.

"That means…?"

"It means we can walk unhindered for a little while, but we should return to the hive to sleep tonight."

"Compound," Theresa corrects absentmindedly, staring up at the mountain.

"I have been an ant before, Theresa. I know a hive when I am in one, no matter what word you use to describe it," Lien fires back without heat. In time, her cousins will learn.

* * *

From the Hokage tower, in the main office, the woman wearing yet another old man's body cackles as she catches sight of two figures walking down the street. Danzo, the man this man gave the chainsaw. At last.

The Anbu detail sweats nervously yet again. The Hokage has been strange all day, like the time he came into the office drunk, or the time somebody switched the grass in his pipes. Whatever it is, they hope it ends soon.


	7. Old Men and Ineffable Concepts

I do not own Naruto.

* * *

"Where is the chainsaw, Theresa?"

Theresa, still in the guise of an old man with a single eye, scowls as her sister (or is it brother?) shakes her by the shoulder.

"I already told you Franky, he's blocking me-"

Franky puts her wrinkled hand over her sister's mouth, moving in closer. The two are inches apart, getting closer. The tension between them is palpable.

"Try harder."

Lien passively watches on as her cousins squabble like highschoolers in the bodies of sextagenarian asain men who are probably mortified by the way their physical forms are being treated. There is little dignity in the act of being sat on by another, threatened with a globule of spit dripping from a wrinkled, puckered pair of lips. It's almost hard to imagine that the Third Hokage could ever recover from such a thing, but he must, because Lien knows he goes on for years yet.

Theresa manages to push her sister's mouth away before the spit falls on her face, her fist coming out of left field to smack her sister in the jaw.

Franky, in the body of the Third Hokage, squawks like a strangled toucan. The hand covering her sister's mouth slips sideways, smearing drool over her cheek, presumably from where Theresa was licking her sister's hand.

"To think I was worried!" Theresa grunts out, struggling to buck her sister off of her. Ever stubborn, Franky refuses to budge, wrestling her sister back down to the ground by her shoulders, her own drool covered face glistening in the faded light of the room.

"I'm really touched by your concern, but I need you to find where that bastard put my chainsaw-"

"Forget about the chainsaw, you're an old man-"

Franky laughs at the irony of that statement, finally succeeding in shoving her sister to the ground, only to yelp as said sister pinches the soft flesh of her inner thigh with a gnarled, weathered hand.

"-Ow you bitch! _You're_ in the body of an old man too-"

"-The fact that we're all men is the problem Franky-"

"-Spent a whole paycheck on it. You know we need it to-"

"-Lost my best cookie tray, don't hear me bitching so hard-"

At some point, Lien sort of tones them out for a little bit. At first it was mildly diverting to watch them scramble around, all baggy skin and old people muscle. Then it became outright funny, and Lien feels honored to have been able to watch both of her cousins kick, and in turn, be kicked in the nuts for the first time. There's a certain sense of accomplishment and understanding that passes the first time that happens when body jumping, both horrible and awe inspiring. One finally understands the sensation of an external period cramp concentrated into something that radiates upward until one wants to vomit their own testicles. A unique experience, to be sure.

Now though, it feels pedantic. Franky, abusing the power of the Hokage, had them brought in hours ago, and nothing has been done. Theresa's hive-queen host body is doing it's best to block her out, burrowing deep inside it's own psyche and trying to separate the two of them, and Lien is almost certain that Franky's is doing the same.

The problem is that her cousins are … well, they are trying to keep a stagnant sense of self instead of allowing themselves to integrate like Lien does. They want to wear the bodies, not become the people. In essence, it's two consciousness warring inside one vessel instead of the constant ebb and flow of one being.

' _How are we different?_ ' asks the boy whose body Lien is borrowing. ' _There's you and me, not us._ '

' _I am listening for you_ ,' Lien replies. ' _And you are listening for me. I know what you know as it pertains to the situation at hand, and vice verse. We are us, together, in the now._ '

The boy seems confused, not understanding. His confusion leaks into her, and she knows she can't explain it with words. She'll have to show him.

She does the spiritual equivalent of brushing her hand comfortingly along his, asking him for a moment of trust, and surprisingly, he allows her. She catches the lingering memory of a dream they once shared, a shoddy fort made of twigs, and a promise to go nowhere together-

Lien cuts them apart violently.

The body they wear twitches, and she can feel his shock at the sensation, but she does what she used to. She drowns it out with pure, unadulterated will power and emotional turmoil. Her consciousness rips apart from his, and it grows, shoving him back into a mental corner.

She fills the spaces, pouring herself into the fingers and toes of this body, trying to fill it as if it was her own. It doesn't fit right, will never fit right like this, but still she tries, ignoring the boy's shouts of protest, letting her own thoughts run wild and loud.

It's easy, so easy to remember how it is to possess somebody. To steal a body and take control. She knows, knows with intimate clarity, what she could do. It's the instinctive cutting word, the promise of the satisfaction that comes from absolute control. It's clear cut lines, a sense of absolute.

Lien breathes in, forces air into the lungs that itch because they don't quite fit, and she lets go.

The boy reclaims the mental territory she tore from him, eagerly establishing his place in his body once more. It doesn't seem like much, but he understands now what she meant to show him. It would be simple for her to dominate the mental plane and shove him away into some dark box inside his own mind, but the discord unsettles her.

' _The Dao is about balance_ ,' she says, placid and calm inside their shared space. ' _There is no balance in a take without giving. The instinct to have more than one needs is natural, but excess without moderation leads to disharmony with the Dao_.'

' _The Dao?_ ' he wonders. He catches the thoughts running through her mind and memories of a piece of writing made by some scholar centuries ago. Then there is an impression of something infinitely large that connects the cosmos, from the stars in the heavens to the grains of dust in his sandals.

' _It's... Ineffable_ ,' she answers, struggling even though she just admitted to not being able to communicate the concept. He feels her calmly search through terms until she settles on the right one with a tranquil sort of acceptance, knowing it's not quite right, but not wrong either. ' _Everything._ '

The nameless boy stares out at the old men wrestling on the floor, and he kicks his feet idly, enjoying the fact that he can. He doesn't think the others understand what Lien is thinking. He doesn't even know if he understands it, or if it can be understood.

The Third Hokage squeals as Danzo-sama sticks his wet finger in his ear, and for a moment, he can almost see them as his visitor does. Curly hair and wild eyes for one, and auburn locks and a kind smile for the other.

' _You aren't invaders, are you?_ ' he concludes after a few moments.

' _I don't think so_ ,' she answers. ' _Not right now, at least._ '

He hums, tilting his head to the side. Or maybe she tilts it. It's hard to tell the difference between them now that she's shown them how separated they could have been. There's still a sense of him and her, but the line is blurred and fuzzy.

He wonders if she lives like this all the time, with the world only defined in clouds of smoke and banks of fog. It seems terrifying to him, like she could just drift off at any point and blink out of existence.

There is a huff in his mind, soft and far away. He does not know if it is wistful or amused.

' _One day, maybe, you will see the path_ ,' she tells him gently. ' _Perhaps, you may even follow it_.'

* * *

Eventually the sisters in the bodies of old men get tired of harassing each other on the floor of what is equivalent to the dream world's oval office. It seems that they have decided that there is no dignity in giving each other wedgies or pinching each other any longer, and then, as a team, they turn on Lien.

Franky, of course, asks about her chainsaw's whereabouts first thing. After that, Theresa is asking more and more questions about how this place runs.

Lien has no answers for them, and neither does her host.

"You've been coming here for years," Theresa huffs exasperatedly. "You should know these things."

"Do you know the current location of the Hope Diamond?" Lien returns, aggravated by the suggestion. "Do you know where I put my purse today, or why people support things they know to be corrupt?"

"Okay, first of all, your purse is probably in your house or-" Franky begins.

"-And your chainsaw is likely in this village or another," Lien interrupts.

Franky gives her an exasperated look that speak volumes on how helpful she finds that statement. A look which Lien returns unrepentantly.

Theresa witnesses them both acting like children and sighs, rubbing her forehead with her leathery old man hand, and hoping that her face remains unwrinkled for years yet. She's so tired, and it's barely even eight o'clock. How long are they going to be here?

"Look, just … let's ignore the chainsaw and logistics for now. What do you usually do?" she asks, desperate for any sense of footing in this time of uncertainty.

Lien, still in that solemn boy's body, blinks. Her placid expression and collected demeanor seem so familiar in this foreign place, because no one but Lien has ever looked so vacantly aware, as if viewing things passively, even her own life.

"I exist," she states simply, as if that is the greatest advice she can offer.

Franky groans and slumps back into her chair. The only proper chair in the entire room, Theresa might add. The rest of them get the dubious honor of sitting on the floor at Franky's feet like some sort of vassal rulers at their kings court.

"No philosophy, please," Franky sighs.

"It's not philosophy," Lien rebukes. "It is what it is. Usually when I find myself in the body of another, I do as they would, allowing their consciousness to manifest their will. There have been a few times I am left in a body with a dormant mind or something along those lines, and at that point in time, I do what I feel necessary. I don't usually take control."

Theresa, in particular, seems bewildered by this notion.

"I...Lien, this guy...this body's spirit is evil," she stresses, rubbing her bandaged arm nervously. "I can't see it all -he won't let me- but what I can see would have him dragged into prison six times over."

"Same. Granpa over here is balls deep in the sketch. The fact that he seems totally fine with the fact the he straight up murders people is really messed up. Don't even get me started on how he runs this village," Franky echoes.

Lien is weary of this judgement. This is the Dream World, not theirs. They are not gods to come in and cast judgement on another's way of life, so long as that life does not inflict their will upon them. They don't even stay here for that long.

"Let it go. This is not your world. Those are not your bodies, and these are not your choices. Imposing morality on the dream world is a misguided effort at best, and delusional effort at worse. The more you try to, the more this world will keep you here," Lien warns softly.

There are memories half buried that surface at that notion. The friend that twisted her neck in the chicken coop, a man with hatred in his heart that bled out into his eyes, and a girl who can't remember where she begins and others stop.

But are they memories, or are they event that have yet to come? Lien doesn't know, she can't keep anything straight. Time is so conceptual, never straight in a line. Branches and branches, the endless cycle of the Dao-

"Lien, you just said you don't know jack about this world," Franky says accusingly.

"I don't. I have dreamed of this place my whole life, and seen centuries pass here in the span of a single week's worth of rest, but I know nothing solid of it. I don't know why I come, and only have theories about what brings us here. I am as I am, and here, that has to be enough," Lien responds.

For a while there is silence as they absorb that fact. Nobody really knows how to follow it, and outside, night is falling.

They while away the hours until their bodies are weary and sleep heavy, the cousins looking for clues to their possessions and warring with their hosts. Lien simply allows the Ne boy to pick at the dumplings they found inside a desk drawer at some point, and he seems to revel in the flavor of them. Apparently, he is far more used to rations and gruel.

And as it always happens, at some impossible to pinpoint moment, they wake up, each in their own body, alone inside their own mind, surrounded by the world they know.

But in the one they left, two old men wake up, and they panic.

The boy, however, seems perfectly calm.


	8. End of Self

I don't own Naruto. Edited 7/9/16

* * *

In a house near the edge of the woods, three women open their eyes in no particular order.

The first thing Franky does is jolt upward, sending her sheets flying across the bed to land in a rumpled heap. She begins patting her body down reverently, cocking her head around to look at herself in the mirror across the room. The curly headed woman grips her heavy breasts in her hands, and lets out a crow of delight when she feels their weight, and sees her own hazel eyes staring back at her from the mirror. She slide her palms downwards beneath her sweatpants, and she laughs with relief at what she finds. She is her again, and her body is distinctly female.

Her sister is slower, more groggy and unfocused, but in the room across from hers, Theresa rolls over and stares at her hand, which is cradled softly on her pillow. She blinks a few times in a daze, seemingly enraptured by the sight of the smooth, wrinkle free flesh, and pale skin. While her sister whoops in joy while staring down her own shirt, murmuring kind words to her mammaries, Theresa finds solace in her comfortable skin, unburdened by time and unplagued by aches.

The both of them look at their rooms, and their bodies, like they have been given the greatest of gifts.

Lien sits up, and goes to make breakfast.

Life goes on.

It's all normal to Lien, all completely within the acceptable parameters for what she can understand. There is no use familiarizing herself with this body anymore, for she knows it better than any other in the Waking World. It requires approximately 2,300 calories a day to keep up with her metabolism, runs best on about four pints of water, and enjoys the taste of balsamic vinegar salads and steamed ginger fish.

While her cousins reorient themselves to this reality and begin to try and find answers, Lien showers and gets ready for work, emptying her mind. The clay pot is needed only for it's hollow cavity, not the ceramic vessel. The home is not the walls or windows, but the space within them.

Lien has no substantive existence in any reality, and her worth is measured in the same way. It is in potential use of what she could be at any time.

Over the course of her life, she has come to accept that. What matters is not the form one inhabits, or the age they are. It matters not what they are, save for what they are in that moment, and the moments that have passed and those yet to come.

In time, her cousins will see that as well. She does not know how to feel about that anymore.

* * *

That night, Lien goes to sleep in her own bed after a long shift, in her own home, without the aid of drugged tea. She expects to follow the same strange pattern that has been occurring with her cousins, and the male with a forest inside his mind.

She closes her eyes, and her brain waves even out before spiking with the onset of REM sleep. In between the thick forces holding the cosmos together, her consciousness travels, rebounding off of the the burst of a supernova, and sling-shotting around the gravities of entire star systems. She transcends all time and space, caught in the buffering forces that tear entire galaxies apart.

And then, unlike the other times, she slams into another.

Lien is overwhelmed by several things at once. First is the fact that there is another traveler in the first place. She's traveled these paths for all her life, and never has she encountered another consciousness before. In fact, the only thing that could be considered anything close to that was the forces of the universe that pushed and pulled her around, but they aren't senient. Or, they aren't sentient on a level that Lien can comprehend.

The second thing is that the consciousness that has slammed into her seems just as alarmed as she is, and is... _combative_ about the whole interaction. It's stretching out tendrils of itself to encase Lien, to trap her. It's weaponized itself on a metaphysical plane of existence, and is intent on neutralizing Lien.

Perhaps most alarming of all though, is that this consciousness is as fluid as Lien is, and every time it tries to wrap a tendril around her and attack, it ends up burying bits of itself inside Lien's being. Everywhere they touch, they end up combining, like vinegar and water in a bucket. She can feel bursts from the stranger, the sensation of alarm, of determination, and eventually fear. It's so startling, so uncomfortable, that Lien instinctively attempts to flee from it's grasp, but only ends up tangling more.

The consciousness seems to register that they are stuck inside of each other, and its fear pulses through them. Lien feels it churn, seeking a way back to where it came. Lien is convinced that there is none, but to her surprise, there is a ribbon of some sort. A ribbon which the foreign soul uses to guide itself back to its body, dragging Lien with it.

This time the transfer into the physical is jarring instead of smooth. This is not the most comfortable, or the most suitable physical form for her in that moment. It was the one she was shoved into, tied with the other consciousness as she was. It fits poorly, and the excess energy remains, billowing and trying to escape their form.

Feeling returns like fire along their nerves, and sound is both comforting and frightening. Lien does not know what is happening. She is unsure, caught up in the sensation of this forced form. It seems too small to house a large consciousness like the one she is tangled with, and far to tiny to hold the both of them. But the alien mind meshing with her feels comforted by it, like a child with a security object, and Lien realizes with sudden awe that the soul mixing with her is young. A child with an expansive mind and greater soul.

"-Ino, baby girl," somebody calls, shaking them. Their hands are big and warm on their small body, and the young soul feels so safe in them. So Secure. "Ino, come back."

They struggle to breath as one, their worlds blending together. The young soul is trying to find grounding, but keeps getting distracted by the points where they join together. It looks into Lien's mind, concentrates on the glimpses it gets jumbled memories from her, until it stumbles upon the Dao. Lien tries to grasp the young one, to turn them away from the heart of all things, but it is fearless as it stares into Lien's very being, absorbing everything that can be reached.

' _There is so much,_ ' the new conscious whispers, in fear and awe. It feels like spring, decidedly female inside and out. A little girl that mingles with Lien, infantile curiosity leading her to bleed out into the other woman, who suddenly finds it terribly hard to recall that she is just dreaming.

"-I knew it was too early to show you the family technique. Come on sweetheart, you're scaring me. Your chakra-"

The shaking turns to grasping, and them instead of just hands, a whole body is wrapped around them. The soft grass beneath them is suddenly too real, far to solid and warm. The girl continues to blend and bleed, and Lien is left shocked as she is swamped with information. Instead of fighting or hiding like her usual hosts, the young one devours, clinging and claiming her. That weaponized conscious seems determined to end the problem of two souls inside one body by combining both.

"Daddy," The young girl replies, breathless as she controls their lips.

"Ino, thank the heavens," returns the voice, and suddenly Lien knows that this is Inoichi Yamanaka, who is papa. But Papa is also a short, squat man in a wheelchair, who was a fisherman. Now he is two in one, and she cannot tell which real and which is dream any longer.

"Daddy," the young one says again. They open their eyes, and Lien raises their hand to look at, totally ignoring the man hovering above them. It is small and slight, as pale as fresh cream, and wreathed in billowing energy. "It's infinite. Forever and ever."

The man holding them stiffens, and they look away from their small hand and tiny fingers to stare up at him in wonder.

"Ino?" he asks quietly, and there is desperation hiding under the steel in his voice.

"-and Lien," Ino says before Lien even has time to respond. She's too busy trying to stem the flow between them, to build boundaries. Ino is acting on instinct, and it is brave, but the end of them both combining is the death of who they are now.

Inoichi's grip grows a little bit tighter on his daughter.

"I saw stars, daddy," Ino continues. "I saw the whole world, and then the cusp of another. She was there, and now she's here-"

"How do you know that name?" he demands, and Ino laughs, as free and as bright as the bird they were the other night. She can feel the phantom weight of wings on their back, and the energy pulses and sways.

"She's had so many bodies, and they have all been hers and not hers," She says. They struggle get out of his grip, because the urge inside them is growing, and Ino knows she can touch the sky. She can taste the wind and freedom, something she's never yearned for before now. Something she would have never known is she hadn't begun to blend with Lien.

His expression turns dark, and he holds her back down. It's easy to do because they are so small, and Ino seems unfazed by his actions, unbothered. The fear that was in her is draining away as they bleed into one another. Maybe it's because she can tell Lien means no harm, or maybe it's because she knows that Lien is just as unsure as she is. Maybe it's because she can sense Lien trying to fix things, and trusts her to take care of it all, despite the absurdity of such and idea.

"Ino-"

"-and Lien. Lien and Ino. Two and one, and one as two, except it's more. It's everyone, and everything," Ino says. In their mind she keeps flying, higher and higher. Lien warns her to stop, to look away, but the child will not heed her. She trusts Lien because she can see inside her soul, but she is still a child yearning to explore what the new them will be. She doesn't understand the implications of what becoming a _them_ will mean, she only knows that is if two minds become one, the body will fit better.

She peaks, caught somewhere between the joy of flight and the triumph of victory, and then there is the other side of the Dao. The immensity that is crushing, strange, cruel, and unforgiving. A boundary that Lien has tried to build crumbles, and there is no going back. Ino sees what becoming _them_ means, and understands the gravity of it all. Memories and ideas flow into Ino, and suddenly she does not want to fly. She doesn't want to give up being Ino, to sacrifice her identity, the very core of herself. She likes being a precocious eight year old under her fathers care, and she loves her friends and life. She doesn't want to absorb the Lien that has seen war, that has known terror and death. She doesn't want to be the thing that is both of them, and neither.

Her body gasps, ceasing her struggles to fly, and goes limp in her father's arms. Ino is drained and tired, but she busies herself trying to stop what she began, building walls and boundaries with more proficiency that Lien could ever hope to have. It's like she was trained to do such things, to manipulate the constucts of her mind, and shape them to better suit her needs.

"I'm sorry," Lien says, using borrowed lips. She is sorry that Ino saw such frightening things, and that they have already blended so much. She is sorry that she could not stop the mingling on her own, and that Ino now has to work to fix it as well.

The father focuses on the strange inflection of the voice, and Lien sees the shared body reflected in his eyes, all pale blond hair, and sky blue irises. Outwardly, the body is unchanged, but Lien know they can never go back to the way things were now.

"You aren't my daughter," Inoichi states with cold realization, and Lien nods.

"Ino's busy," she tells him calmly, because Ino is busy separating them as best they can, drawing lines in their psyche, attempting to untangle them. For now, she will assume control so Ino can focus on her task.

"You get out of her," he orders, as if it is a simple thing to do. Lien spares him an appalled glance, because it's not that simple. Lien has never been able to just leave someone before. How would one even go about that?

He barks out something else, but it's hard to understand him. Lien gets that there are words being said, but Ino is moving on the the language center of their brain, trying to sort out English, mandarin, and whatever Elemental common tongue is. Lien is only able to catch snippets as the girl works.

"-Never come back-," he whispers to them. "You should have stayed away. You're- regret ever- my baby girl-"

"I'm sorry," Lien says again, no inflection in her tone, hoping it's in the right tongue.

The man raises up, cradling them in his harms. There is a strange buzzing that itches underneath their skin, like electricity and molten earth, and it pulses when he takes off running. He's a tree walker. A paternal tree walker. The concept is interesting, and Lien wants to theorize about it, but Ino is crying out in confusion, tugging on Lien's focus. The child is demanding assistance, stumbling across a point where she is having trouble building a boundary.

Lien is dragged out of the physical, into their muddled mind. The outer world fades into blurs as she becomes distracted by the other soul joined.

Ino is stuck in the loop, caught in a never ending flow of a whole life's worth of information. Her thoughts, defining moments, her beliefs and systems all flood into the child who only has a handful of years in her, and the blurry lines of reality entangle them both. The concept of the Dream World and the Real World confuse the child, and she's losing coherence as she struggles to separate them.

' _I...I….I,_ ' the girls stutters out, but she still trying to make sense of it all, still so brave in the face of it all.

A flutter, almost indistinguishable in this flow of ideas and memories, catches Lien's attention. It's soft, like the petals of a flower, unfurling carefully. It's a sense of solidity, of certainty in all of this. It is the base facts that Lien uses to assume functionality, her most basic truths.

Lien pushes it toward the child.

The girl lets out a protest, but Lien knows it must be done.

The protests grow fainter as the girl realizes that the basic facts are necessary to continue living as she wants, and that she needs them to continue her work building boundaries back up. She knows that without them, she will succumb to cyclical confusion and disorientation.

' _I can't...but you_ ,' she asks. ' _Help me, I can't- I need-_ '

' _I know_ ,' Lien says comfortingly, and the girl is filled with both grief and relief. She recedes back in their head to finish her task, and Lien takes control of the body again, drifting up out of the mental plain, back into the physical. It seems easier for some reason, like it was never as absurd as she thought it to be in the first place.

As she surfaces she notices they have been taken elsewhere, far from the grassy field. Before she even opens her eyes, she feels shackles binding the body to a chair, holding it upright. The smooth, cold metal is jarring, a sharp contrast to the warm, rough hands that held them before. The environment lacks any sort of breeze, and she cannot feel the kiss of the sun on her skin.

She opens her eyes to darkness, a dimly lit cell with damp air that carries hints of mildew. It takes her a moment to realize that the only illumination available is coming from her own skin, the energy that refuses to be transformed into matter exuding a soft light.

"You said this day would come."

The woman in question looks over, and there is suddenly a masked shadow in the corner of the cell. She does not see their face, but she knows them somehow. The tufts of bark colored hair, and the set of his shoulders; they are familiar.

"Franky? Theresa?" she asks curiously.

The being shakes his head. For some reason she thinks of a forest stretching forever, and a unnaturally even grass.

"You told me once that I would stand here," the masculine voice repeats slowly. "You said that everything would start changing."

"Everything is always changing," she replies.

"I'm not… I'm not ready," they confess, and Lien sympathizes with the quiet anxiety she finds in his voice. The living shadow folds in on itself, and for a moment it looks so very small and human that Lien cannot help herself. She wants to comfort it, to let it know it's okay.

"It's alright," she tells it softly.

The shadow takes a deep, shaking breath that seems to rattle through their torso, and shiver through their frame. It takes it a moment to stand tall and composed again, shoulder back and porcelain mask shining. It pauses only for the briefest of seconds before slinking back into the corners of her cell like a phantom.

"I'm sorry," it whispers. "It has to happen."

"It's okay," she comforts again, not knowing what it is speaking of. "It's just a dream."


	9. Ascendance

I do not own Naruto.

* * *

Sarutobi Hiruzen walks the corridors of Konoha's T&I division with a quiet solemnity, and if his feet made sound against the ground instead of ghosting across it, he knows the noise would echo around the earthen halls like a temple bell. He imagines it would reverberate through the entire village, clamoring a message to the world at large.

A sound of triumph, perhaps. Or one of warning.

He does not know when all of this began for the world. Perhaps they had been coming since creation itself. Perhaps they started when the Sage did, or when the first bit of Chakra leaked into the world. Sarutobi can only say for sure when he first really took notice, years ago, when in between breaths something took control of his body.

It named itself Franky, and no amount of fighting or struggle would cause it to budge.

It tore from him many secrets before he could stop it, information no man but he should know. It cared not for proprietary, or safety, and seemed unaffected by wordly affairs. Instead it searched him with a single minded intensity for an item it had lost, one that his Anbu teams had brought back to him after a mission that was distinctly strange.

(And he should have looked harder into this mystery back then. He should not have let it become a cold case like so many before it, put down to foreign jutsu, or domestic strife. There was evidence, strange and otherworldly machinery, and powers unheard of. But it was too strange, and he had been distraught by the loss of his successor and wife at the time.)

Since then, he and Danzo have been playing catch up with these beings, using the young boy that experienced the same to search them out and hunt their stories down when T&I could find no substance. There is so many things to be learned about them, and so little substance to be found.

Most of what there is is naught but rumor and hearsay. Fables of village founders meeting three fates, and tales of the Sage once conversing with a maiden, a mother, and a crone. There are whispers of Madara's madness being inspired by them, and the Bijuu knowing them on sight. Some say that the First Daimyo of Suna found them in the shape of a scorpion, a gale, and a spring, and they helped him found a village. Others yet proclaim that they spirit away the wondering, and the lost.

Now one has come back, a harbinger of some strange fate. It invades the body of the heiress of one of Konoha's Clans, and appears totally at ease, despite being bound to a chair inside a cell.

Outside the room, the young head of interrogation paces, unable or unwilling to disguise his anxiousness. When he senses Hiruzen's presence, he looks up sharply, his eyes like glaciers on his face.

"Hokage-sama," he says, and Hiruzen cannot tell if it is an admonishment or a plea.

"Inoichi-san," the older man returns, his voice forced into steadiness. "Be at peace."

The man's face spasms, and for a moment, Hiruzen can see the terrified father lashing out. It is a break in composure so unlike this man that Hiruzen is taken aback, remembering the twelve year old boy that he once was.

"I cannot be at peace when my daughter is being held hostage inside her own body," he states ferociously.

"Inoichi," the old man says in a level tone.

The reprimand is enough interrogator, and he mostly composes himself, but the fear is still evident in his eyes, as well as the anger. He does not understand the situation, and only knows that he was tasked with searching out years ago. Three names, and an obscure ability much like his families own.

Now he knows why, but he wishes he didn't.

"The entity is exuding substantial amounts of chakra. It's more than Ino's body can produce, and I worried about her dying at first, but it's not _her_ producing it. Whatever is inside, this Lien, it's expending a lot of energy for no known purpose," Inoichi reports. He breathes in for a moment, and there are words straining behind his teeth. More than anything, he just wants the entity gone.

"Does it seem to be directed? A preparation for attack, or just a showing of power?"

"I don't think it's either. When they looked at it, they seemed surprised to see it, and have been treating it as an oddity since then. As ordered, the subject has been in isolation for thirty six hours, though it seems generally unaffected by this, and hasn't asked to eat or drink once. I'm not sure how the bodily functions are working, actually," Inoichi admits. If they could get a med nin in there- but no. Orders are orders, even with his daughter. "There has been no signs of strain or stress."

The Hokage nods, having been updated on the situation. He had hope that maybe, he could visibly soften it's will with the usual methods, but it was a leap. The thing is not human. How could he expect it to be concerned with human needs?

"I suppose the only thing left to do is the actual interrogation," Hiruzen says finally, and Inoichi nods stiffly. Hopefully, this nightmare of a situation will end. He prays that the Hokage will find what he's looking for quickly, because if he deems physical persuasion necessary-

"Sir," he says softly. "Please, be mindful of your actions, and their weight. We know little and nothing of this creature, and I know that my daughter is still inside."

For a long moment, Hiruzen looks upon him with serious eyes. He remembers how it was for him, and if young Ino is still inside, experiencing this, he prays she will forget. It is a heavy burden for one so young.

* * *

' _What is this?_ '

Inwardly, Lien sighs. The soul inside her head woke up some time ago, after searching out the new boundaries of herself within the confines of their shared headspace. She's...different now. Still young, and yet not. She seems to have accepted the changes to her with all the grace of a child finding out a new fact, but adultlike in her articulation of ideas.

' _A classroom_ ,' Lien answers quietly, no more than a thought being shared.

' _Doesn't look like a class_ ,' the child declares, living out a stolen memory. It's an old one, a classroom lecture on cells, and the way the body breaks down food to gain basic nutrients and energy. Personally, Lien thinks it's a bit lackluster, but the self dubbed 'Ino-chan' seems to find it all endlessly entertaining, like a magic show of some sort.

Inside, Lien can feel her energetic mind chewing away, coming up with more and more questions. She's fascinated and curious in turns, demanding what such advance technology like projectors and genjutsu are doing inside of a classroom, and why none of the teachers are wearing a headband.

' _And you just come here when you fall asleep? Then mind-body switch with your host?_ '

If she could, Lien would make a face, because she'd never even heard of the Shintenshin technique until Ino woke up hours ago -or the day before? Or the week? How long has it been?- and tried to cancel said technique out.

' _It's not the same thing you do_ ,' Lien reminds her yet again. ' _I'm not a tree walker._ '

Ino snorts. Apparently, Lien is bad with names.

' _Ninja_ ,' she corrects yet again. ' _They're ninja._ '

' _Where I'm from, people don't have your abilities, and ninja's are guerrilla fighters that sprang up in one small section of the world, not the base of every known military force. Nor are they the root of the postal, and protection industry_ ,' Lien points out.

Ino does the mental equivalent of blinking, and then begins rooting around the inside of their shared mind for the definition of the large majority of the terms she just used. And that's strange, this once little girl running through memories and experiences with more skill than Lien could ever manage. But, at least his activity allows Lien to run over the information she has learned as well.

This place, this Dream World, she has always known it to be more vivid and elaborate than any dream she's been in before. She's spent her whole life in and out of it, learning the intricacies and nonsensical wonders of it, but before now, she's never had the context she does.

Running into Ino, and mingling their souls together, has given Lien a solid eight years worth of experiences and memories of another life. She always ruled that this place was the non-reality because it fundamentally made no sense, but she was missing something, and element unnamed.

Chakra. A toss away term she had both heard, and used, before. It was synonymous with magic, a hocus-pocus thing that used to defy definition.

But Ino's memories show her differently. Chakra is about the same as energy is in her world. Both are defined as the strength and vitality required for mental and physical processes, and both are power derived from the utilization of physical or chemical resources. Chakra is ATP, and Chakra is electricity. Chakra is fire and water and wind, the same way atoms are everything.

Only, according to Ino's early memories, evolution was vastly different in their two worlds.

Lien can't tell if their world has had more time, or less, than Lien's home. It's easy to look out at the rural, sometimes backwards methods, and assume that they are living out a time period that Lien's world has passed. However, there is also technology and philosophy far beyond what this time period implies. Their culture only has a few hundred years of recorded history, according to Ino's mind. All of which comes after a huge period of intense, incredible warfare that is vaguely defined. One that is shrouded in mystery.

A post-apocalyptic society, perhaps? A civilization that took root after a war between humans with several hundred thousand more years to evolve than those back home? Or a young one, where evolution branched out due to this strange almost-radiation that allows people to consciously manipulate matter and energy with training?

And the timeline... Ino comes after the death of the Fourth Hokage, in a fragile time of peace. Lien is distantly aware that she's been jumping in and out of time in this world, but she thought that maybe it was all that inconsistent. Actually, she doesn't know what she thought. The Dream World was supposed to be fluid and sporadic. It was never supposed to have the grounding that Ino's memories give it.

With this new information, the line between Waking World and Dreaming World grows thin, and Lien is having a hard time establishing which is the real one. Of course, hers makes the most sense to her, but then again, if she listens to Ino's memories, the Dream World begins to make sense too.

And if she questions, if she presses too hard on either, they both begin to break down.

All society, all culture, is a construct of the biological beings, attempting to impress will and structure onto things that span beyond comprehension, built from thousands of years of development. Logic, reasoning conducted or assessed with strict principles of validity, is entirely dependant on perspective. Language is a media attempting to convey a four dimensional concept into sound in order to transfer ideas and information, and it's inherently flawed, with variables like tone, context, and structure changing entire meanings. Mathematics purposely isolates numbers from their environments, boiling them down into equations, and irregularities crop up all the time. They come in the form of unsolvable math problems like Beal's conjecture, the Skolem problem, Hilbert's fifteenth and Sixteenth problem, The Stark Conjecture, Kobon Triangle problem, and so many more. And science, her love, her hope, is the child of these three, and thus inherently flawed from the start.

Maybe it's her not understanding things. Maybe it is her own limited comprehension, but the line is so blurry now. What makes sense breaks down, and she can confirm nothing.

Lien is sure of nothing.

( _What is real?_ )

' _I don't get it,_ ' is what Ino interrupts, surfacing from her searches to find Lien drifting in her own incomprehension.

' _I don't understand it either_ ,' Lien admits. Feelings of doubt and insecurity nag at her, because nothing is real, and she's crazy. She's mad, ugly, useless, and gross inside worlds that don't exist, bound by made up rules she's afraid are breaking down.

' _We should get up now_ ,' Ino says after a pause. ' _Daddy will be worried._ '

' _Okay_ ,' Lien answers simply. She can feel something stirring, an idea on the tip of her mind. It's starting to raise up, just inside her grasp. ' _Okay_.'

They open their eyes.

It's still dark, and still damp. They are still chained to a chair, and nothing outwardly seems to have changed, even though they both have undergone huge revelations inside. The Shadow...the _ninja_ still stands in the corner, mostly unseen.

They blink.

' _Do you want control of the body?_ ' Ino asks, as if it is a shared toy to be passed between them.

' _It's your body_ ,' Lien answers distractedly, just the barest of whispers in Ino's mind now. The little girl can feel the thing inside her shifting, consumed by something from the heart of all things.

Ino shrugs, this time outwardly manifesting said action. For a moment, she seems surprised at this, but then remembers she's not on a mental plane anymore, and that it happens all the time.

The ninja in the corner is watching them closely now, but Ino isn't particularly bothered by it. She wants to get out of the chains that are chafing her wrists, and she jiggles her hands around, trying to squeeze them beneath the links. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't work.

The eight year old is just about to open her mouth and ask for her father when the door opens, and another person steps through.

The sight of the honorable third Hokage makes Ino instinctively stiffen and sit up in her chair, attempting to look presentable for the head of their village. It's no easy feat, considering her shorts are rumpled, and her hair is half hanging in her face, but she tries, because that's what daddy would have wanted.

He comes right up, and at first Ino thinks that he's going to help undo her chains, but then he just stands there and looks at her. Not doing anything.

"Uh...Hokage-sama?" Ino asks after a second.

The Hokage looks down, and seems to peer very hard at her eyes.

"Is it Ino speaking, I wonder, or is it someone else?" he asks her.

Ino scrunches up her face, confused.

"It's Ino," she says.

"But before, it was Lien," he tells her, and then Ino is less confused. Of course it would seem weird that they changed around, but that was before. It was an emergency situation.

"I was busy, so Lien took over," she explains breezily, as if extradimensional beings take over her body everyday, after accidently blending souls. "But now I'm me again, so I'm here."

Then she thinks of all the new memories, and pieces of herself. She recalls that she isn't, technically, who she was, and thinks that she should probably inform the hokage that.

"-But not the me from before. I've got new stuff, and I gave some stuff to Lien. We shared," she amends.

The Hokage simply looks at her. It's the same looks that Ino gets from her dad when she says something he needs explained.

But...but it's hard to put into words, Ino discovers. How can she tell the Hokage about the heart of all things, and the wonder of the stars? How can she describe her new friend, Lien, who is both twenty five, and old enough to have seen times before history?

"What did you share?" the Hokage asks her.

Ino roots around her head for the right word. Kindly enough, Lien picks out a few for her to choose from.

"Memories. Ideas, " Ino says, not sounding at all like the eight year old girl that she was just two days ago. "Lien has lots of them. I only had a little, but I have more now. "

"Memories? "

Ino hums, nodding her head and looking into the distance. Lien has so many memories, and thoughts. At first, it was hard to even remember that Ino wasn't Lien, because there was so many. That's why Ino had to find herself again, because the boundaries got so blurred.

"Lien remembers lots of stuff," she says to him. "Like how it feels to fly in a bird's body, or how last night she dreamed of Franky taking over you."

The Hokage inhales sharply. There are many, many things wrong with this situation. First and foremost, how strange the girl is acting. Secondly, the way she is speaking so familiarly, and fondly, of the invasive entity. Then the sharing of memories, and ideas; the way she refered to such the life changing incident as if it happened last night, instead of years ago. And-

"Dreams?" He leads on, unsettled.

Ino nods, unperturbed.

"That's what Lien calls them. She dreams of us a lot," Ino clarifies, only muddling the situation further.

"This is not a dream," he says solemnly.

This time, Ino doesn't answer. Her eyes slide to the side, and her face twists through emotions as a myriad of thoughts flood her minds.

( _And Lien stumbles into comprehension, as clumsy as a baby taking it's first steps. The idea that eluded her before fits firmly inside her mind at his words. This is not a dream, he says, and it echoes._

 _This is not a dream, she repeats, and Ino, so young and new, tries to grasp on to Lien's soul as it grows beyond her grasp._ )

She refocuses her gaze on the old man in front of her, and it's the same eyes, in the same face, but a different force looking out of them. Hiruzen doubted Ino's identity before, but he doesn't doubt now. This isn't that little girl. This is something else.

The chakra around the child's body flutters, like a flame in the wind, despite the lack of breeze, and the nature of chakra. The long shadows cast over the room dance, taking on a fey nature, and the light of the room begins to bend oddly. A smell lingers on the air, unnamable and otherworldly, and the temperature warms from cold into entirely temperate.

"It's all a dream. Everything is."

Like a light bulb shattering, or a bubble surfacing, Lien Wakes, and loses reality.

* * *

 **AN: Alright, I hope this gives more context. If not, than let me explain fully. Time isn't linear in this story, although for a few chapters it's been following a line. Lien has been jumping in and out of the timeline for all her life, and has accumulated centuries worth of memories in her dreams. She thought the real world was real because it made sense, but with Ino's soul joining hers, she has to accept that the Dream World is just as real...or that hers is just as fake.**

 **Lien is mirroring the concept of not only the cycle of Samsara (Living out many lives in many bodies in an endless cycle) but also The Ascending Master. Both are concepts I have taken liberties with, and hopefully, portrayed respectfully.**

 **Feel Free to ask more questions though. If they aren't directly tied to spoilers, I'll do my best to answer.**


	10. In Order To Create Reality

I do not own Naruto. TW for casual mentions of suicide.

* * *

Lien pulls up to Theresa's and Franky's house in a spray of rocks, not so much easing her car to a halt, but braking so fast her car skids across the dirt road and into the grass. The vehicle shudders as it stills, the engine silencing suddenly as a cloud of kicked up dust drifts behind it.

From her vantage point on the porch, Theresa watches on in mild alarm.

Lien flings open her door, the metal groaning as it opens, and she steps out entirely composed, her expression blank and calm. There is something off about her cousin, her petite body radiating something Theresa can't quite name. Whatever it is though, Lien's consumed with it, and she serenely glides over to where Theresa is, her dark eyes glimmering, her feet light as they cross the old wooden planks of the wisteria roofed veranda.

"Lien-," Theresa starts, worried.

Lien cuts her off, her small hand reaching out to snatch Theresa's wrist. Her slender fingers look odd there, nestled against the darker skin, like a bird's talons around a mouse.

"Nothing is real," Lien asserts tranquilly. "Everything is a dream."

Theresa gapes. What the hell does she mean, _nothing is real_?

Lien doesn't let Theresa's obvious shock stop her, tugging her larger cousin forward, her grip like steel as she turns to the house. She is so caught in her purpose that she forgets that the door doesn't open by willpower alone, and she slams into it headfirst, hard enough to cause Theresa even more anxiety. The red mark on her head doesn't seem to faze her, though, and she fumbles for the doorknob, mumbling about the arbitrary mechanics of a made up world.

' _This is it_ ,' Theresa chokes inside her mind. ' _Lien's finally lost it_.'

To be fair, it shouldn't be surprising. Lien has always been odd. She's reclusive, near hermit like, living by herself in the middle of nowhere. She only goes out to work, or visit them, and she can barely hold a coherent conversation some days. The distant, near air-headed attitude was acceptable as a child, but growing up, it had only gotten worse.

Of course, that had all been explained with recent revelations. Lien's been jumping in and out of worlds forever and ever, and it's not… it's not a dream. Not like she thought they would be.

That world is too real. It's vivid and bright, occupying every sense. When Theresa dreamt before, she could hardly remember her dreams, and often times, they were just nonsensical impressions of ideas. A tomato flood, or an embarrassing situation where she was pants-less at school.

This other place lingers, though. She can remember it is great detail, from the smell of the glade where she lost her baking tray, to the feel of her skin sagging around her flesh. She wants to write it off, wants to forget, but it won't let her.

Now, looking at Lien, she has the terrible feeling that she may be looking at a possible future version of herself.

"Franky," Lien calls evenly as she finally gets the door open, stepping inside. She's in such a hurry, she doesn't even take her shoes off, treading over the floors in her sandals.

Lien _never_ does that.

"Lien?" Frank asks, her muffled voice floating from the kitchen. If Theresa had to guess, her sister is talking with her mouth full.

Lien blinks distractedly, swiveling her head in the direction of the voice, dragging Theresa behind her. Theresa has to snap out her foot to kick the door closed, and she fumbles with her shoes fruitlessly without her hands as Lien tugs her onward. Now they are both wearing outside shoes on the clean floor, like some sort of godless heathens.

"Nothing is real Franky," Lien says, before she's even in the room. "The state of reality is in constant flux."

The two of them stumble through the mudroom door into the kitchen, where Franky has paused mid-bite, her sandwich hanging loosely in her hands. She has her elbows propped up on the counter, her curly hair tied back with a bandanna to keep it out of her face while she works outside.

And Theresa was completely right. One of her sister's cheeks is stuffed with partially chewed turkey club, and yet she deigns to open her mouth.

"Wha-?"

Lien, in a move more fit for a ballroom dance floor than a kitchen, spins Theresa over to her sister's side in order to have her audience in one place, showing astounding strength for one with such a tiny body.

"The other world has as much reasoning as our world, but they are both equally as false as when broken down. It's not so random as we once believed. There was branching evolution, and a larger distribution or energy-slash-chakra-slash-radiation-slash-I'm-not-sure. All I'm really sure is that I exist, nominally…. at times. In the same way the hollow space in a vase exists, or the room in a cup that hasn't been filled. You could be fake, but for the sake of my own fragile psyche, I am choosing to believe people are real most of the time," Lien delivers eloquently, her expression frighteningly still.

Franky resumes chewing, more slowly than before. She squints her eyes at Lien, hazel orbs narrowed in judgement.

"Decartez?" Theresa guesses, unsteady and trying to find at least one familiar idea.

"Lao Tzu," Franky corrects uncertain, finally swallowing her food. She gives Lien a hard look, trying to pinpoint the odd atmosphere around her. She can't name it, but something has changed. Insanity, maybe?

"Every real thing can be measured-"

"Wrong," Lien states, cutting her cousin off. The rude behavior is as jarring to Franky as it was to Theresa, and she inhales sharply. Her callused hands squeeze a little tighter on her sandwich.

"The Principle of Uncertainty means that everything can be measured, up until a certain point. After that, they cannot be measured. Also, somethings defy measurement, like random radioactive decay," Lien recites coolly, with the same level tone she's been using throughout. Her eyes stray to the side, near the counter, as if she can see something there. Or perhaps she's just distracted by her own thoughts.

The sisters stare at her, wary.

"So, if that world is a dream, and this world is a dream, there must be a hitherto unseen real world. Or, all the worlds are real, and they exist simultaneously within each other, and I, as the breaking variable, am fake. But because I cannot be fake while doubting my own fakeness, then I must be real, unless I exist in a state of paradox," she starts up again.

"Or you're an outlier," Theresa hedges, uncertain she's been following correctly. Or if there is a correct direction to follow, considering this is most likely a breakdown of monumental proportions.

"-Or I'm an outlier," Lien provides. "In which case, I would be counted as insane. However, as you two can attest, this other dream world exists as well, and in the Theory of Gradient Reality, it becomes more real because it. However, considering populations, three is not very many, and it's still not real at all. Then again, from what I know of the other dream world, they would consider our world fake, and so our world doesn't exist either. They exist to only the three of us, so all of us are insane."

Franky furrows her brow, looking confused. Those were words, yes, but in that order they didn't quite make a lot of sense.

"What?" Theresa asks, equally appalled.

Lien stares at them for a long, long moment without speaking. Her gaze is unsettling, to say the least.

"Everything is a dream," she says slowly.

"No," Theresa replies back, drawing it out equally slow. "We're awake."

Lien continues speaking, despite Theresa's negation of her previous statement. She will not argue that topic anymore than she will argue that planes fly. To her, it is obvious, and explaining this much is already pushing her.

"This world says the other world does not exist, and that world says the same about this. They both make little sense when broken down, and only a few people remain as outliers to attest to their existence, independent of belief. However, I hypothesize that the more people that come to believe in the worlds, plural, the more they will make sense, and the more they will become real. Like what happens with morality. What is believed to be right, becomes it."

"There are...so many thing wrong with that…. Lien, I- " Franky tries. She seems unsure, and contemplates the situation for a long while before finishing her statement. "That's not how it works."

"It doesn't work. Because it's not real. So I have to make it real."

"And how are you going to create reality?" Theresa queries, eyeing her. She looks so...at peace, as if the whole world can shift and flow, but she has removed herself from it all.

"I have two people from one world that believe in this one, and now I need some from the other world to believe in ours to balance it out and make everything more real. Only, I've never bought anything between worlds," Lien outlines, glancing back at her cousins. "But you have."

"That's not how it works," Franky protests again, still not offering a better solution.

"The only other answer I see is that dying is truly waking up, only I've already done it there, so I'd have to try here, but I thought you might get upset if I did that and it worked," Lien continues coolly, seemingly unaffected by the thought of inducing her own death.

"Lien," Theresa whispers, suddenly horror stricken. "You're talking about killing yourself."

Lien gesture idly with her hand, as if to say 'see, I told you it would be upsetting to you'. Yet she herself remains unmoved, her expression lax, and her posture loose.

Theresa darts her eyes over to her sister, who meets her gaze with a concerned one of her own. Lien is unstable, and a danger to herself. They can't just let her leave now. In fact, they aren't really sure what they _can_ do.

"How about we just tuck that idea away," Franky comments shakily, turning back to watch like she's a dangerous predator on the verge of attacking. Or perhaps a family member who just casually brought up suicide as a means to test a theory. "And do what you first said. You can spend the night, maybe a couple of them"

Lien smiles at this, a half grin that reminds Theresa of the Mona Lisa, or the ever gladdened Buddha. It's such a peaceful expression, and yet Lien's words are anything but.

Lien bows her head in thanks, and for the first time, she seems to notice her shoes are still on.

"Oh," she utters, blinking at her sandals. "I'm so sorry… let me...let me go fix that."

And then she shuffles out of the kitchen, leaving the sisters alone and unsure what to do.

* * *

Lien goes to bed that night fairly certain she's gone mad. That she has always, in fact, been mad.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she's aware that this plan of hers is insane, and that there are logical fallacies speckled throughout her entire thought process. A large part of it was circular reasoning, at best, and pure nonsense at worst.

However, Lien remains unaffected by this, because everything is a dream anyway, so she's going to do as she pleases so long as it does no harm to others. Though she can only ascertain that she, herself is real (at times), and others might be made up, it's no excuse to be rude.

It's freeing, in a way, to realize that everything that is, everything that she has done and lived by, is completely made up. The rules and constants are only consistent up to a certain point, and beyond that, there is nothing holding her. She's passed the event horizon of her life, escaped all ties save for that of family. She is groundless, flying free, more awake than she's ever been. Nothing is real, nothing matters. It is only what she makes it to be.

But to create something, she needs to make thread, thread that her cousins will help weave, and then cut.

Maybe a tiny piece of her thinks this will make the world real. Maybe. But mostly, she just wants to try it.

(True, she does want to try dieing in this world as well, but she's stalling that plan for the aforementioned reasons. People will get upset if she just goes and dies, and even if they might not exist, it would be rude to upset them.)

So, here she is, tumbling through the fabric of reality, en route to wherever and whenever. She's made the journey a thousand times, but with Ino's parts inside of her, she experiences it in a whole new way. She's… aware of the minds tied to hers as she exits her body, can trace the bonds binding them together like threads. They feel like gossamer on her consciousness, effervescent and light, just a fluttering thought at the edge of her mind.

Two she knows. They feel like wood-fires, and warm ovens. Theresa and Franky are strung to each other, and each one of them is sewn to her.

Two she can only guess. The lines of these bonds travel outward, into the other world. She lets them guide her, curiously following them through the universe, getting impressions of bush clovers and tree sap as she darts around nebulas. The clover is probably Ino, but the sap-

She vibrates, trailing the red string until she feels herself coalescing into a physical form, her cousins right behind her.

The world blinks into being, the moon high and ripe in the sky, a silver jewel hung among the stars. Her bare feet touch down in grass as high as her waist, the glade stretching onward into a forest full of trees that dwarf even the mightiest sequoia. It's temperate out, a slight breeze running through the summer air.

Lien takes a single moment to recognize that she's human, though younger than her other body. Judging by her hands and too big clothes, she's a teenager again, which is … a thing. Symbolic, perhaps, of the changes her mind is going through. If she had to pick a form to describe both insanety and will made manifest, she would pick a teenager.

She peeks behind her to share this thought with her cousins, but they do not appear to have followed this trend. The sight that greets her is not two other teens, or any humans at all.

Lien begins to laugh.

"Dogs!" she teases.

The creatures behind her huff and growl respectively, obviously annoyed with the change of form. They are great, big beasts, coming up to Lien's chest, with rippling fur and muscle. Their ears swivel around as their yellow eyes comb the forests, and Lien thinks that Theresa's auburn hair suits her even better when it covers her as fur.

Franky, lifting a paw to scratch her muzzle, whines at her.

"Oh cousin, it's alright. You are lovely even as a dog," Lien compliments, brushing some of the coarse hair on her back. It's thick and coarse, and flows between her fingers like water.

Lien does not know what symbol this is supposed to take, or why they have manifested in this form. Perhaps it too, is symbolic, or perhaps it is entirely random. Whatever it is, she thinks it is delightful.

"Those are not dogs," a voice rings out from the treeline, causing Franky to stiffen under her palm. Lien remains calm though, because she came here following the red thread. She knew she would find people. That was the entire point.

Theresa, not knowing this, or perhaps running on instinct, swivels around to face the sound, snarling, her tail up and fur bristling.

"Those are wolves," the voice states again, almost lazily. There's an undercurrent there though, a dangerous one. Threatening even.

Lien looks up, and she peers toward the speaker, noting there is not one, but two people standing near the trunks of the great trees. Both sport masks of white, and one looks terribly familiar.

Standing beside a taller ninja with silver hair is the ninja that was in the cell with her and Ino, only younger. His brown hair is slightly longer, swaying in the wind, and his frame isn't quite as large.

Lien smiles, even as her cousins turn and snap. She knows him now, the one with the red string. He's the boy with the forest inside his head. The one that was without a name, a ghost who lived inside the great hive.

"I found you," she remarks happily, grin in place. The silver haired ninja stiffens at her her words, following her gaze to the boy beside him.

She lifts her hand from her cousin, outstretching it towards the ninja.

"Are you ready to go nowhere together?"

* * *

 **AN: So, a couple of things. This chapter is kinda the start of a new arc. The first chapters were an introduction of characters, and a series of events that will slowly, kinda, begin to be tied together from here out. We have a bunch of facts, a huge clashing of philosophy and science, a big cast already, and now it's time for them all to begin interacting and figuring the mystery out. To make any sense of this though, because Lien is a nonlinear narrative, removed from the timeline, we will begin to see things from other peoples POV.**

 **Also, to clarify, when Lien 'Wakes' (capital intended) she's ascertaining certain facts, and acknowledging certain positions. It's more spiritual than physically manifest. HOWEVER, because she 'woke', and because she blended with Ino, we will be seeing her gaining some attributes. Mostly, she becomes more aware of how to navigate between worlds. Notice how in this chapter, she chose where she wanted to go, instead of just being caught up in it.**


	11. Imaginary Friends

I do not own Naruto.

* * *

Tenzo has had three phases to his life so far.

The first phase begins and ends with Orochimaru's lab. There's something that comes before that time, but he can't remember anything from it other than the smell of smoke. So, his earliest, clearest memories are of a tank filled with water, and tubes winding around him like snakes. He can recall examination tables, golden serpent eyes, and fear. Sometimes, he wakes up at night still feeling the currents of water on his skin, artificially created by ever whirring pumps and oxygenated by bubbles from a machine somewhere below his floating body.

The second phase begins where that one ended, when he was spirited away to join the ranks of ROOT. The memories here are clearer and yet somehow more muddled. There was nothing definite in that place. Nothing was solid. He had no true name, or even a true face. He went where he was told, did what he was instructed, and owned nothing at all, not even the clothes he wore or the bed he slept in. He lived to serve and became whatever was most needed at that moment.

The third and current phase of his life started when he met senpai in that muddled place. It was senpai that gave him a name, and brought him up from the shadows he had seen his whole life. His superior showed him a world that was bathed in sunlight, where the mission wasn't everything; he was more than just a soldier or a number on a test-tube. He's still learning how to live in this newest phase, testing the edges of it every day.

It's quite strange, though. During every phase of his life, she has shown up.

At first he thought that maybe she was a creation of his mind, a manifestation of his wish to not be alone. He thought he made her up; she was a friend to have in that terrifying place, a coping mechanism.

She was his imaginary friend when he was on the examination table, or when Orochimaru's eyes dissected him through the glass tank. He would simply call her up with his mind, conjure the warmth of her fingers in his palm, making the creation of his mind tangible if only for a few moments.

After he left that place behind he once again reinforced her existence as a figment of his imagination. People from dreams don't exist and they never found any other living being in that place. It was just him, alone, and anything or anyone else couldn't have been real.

But... she came to him again. She manifested inside his head, something solid when he was supposed to be little more than a ghost. She shared his body with him, doing things to prove herself beyond a shadow of a doubt. That might have been terrifying by itself, a sign of insanity perhaps, but she made witnesses out of Hokage and Danzo both. (Or, at least, something like her did.)

Now, she's here and he wonders how her very existence seems to make the edges of reality soften and smudge. She's grown up from the child in the dream, all gangly limbs and fine features, standing in a glade in the middle of the night. By her side are possibly the biggest wolves he's ever seen, bristling as she reaches out her hand and asks, "Are you ready to go nowhere?"

It's like something out of a storybook, a scene that shouldn't exist in real life, let alone on covert mission in The Land of Grass. Chakra signatures don't just appear out of nowhere, and neither do people. Human beings don't just materialize in moonlit glades, flanked by wolves and asking espionage operatives to travel with them based on some sort of childhood friendship ritual.

He reaches out to grasp senpai's shoulder, just to have something solid to hold on to.

"You found him?" Kakashi-senpai intones lowly. Tenzo knows what it sounds like to a paranoid ninja. Tenzo is the lone holder of a powerful Kekkei Genkei and she just admitted to searching for him specifically.

"I did," she proclaims tranquilly. "I said we would go nowhere together when the snake man was going to hurt us."

Tenzo sucks in a breath and Kakashi's hands twitch near his shuriken pouch. There is no mistaking who she's talking about, and the way she's talking makes it sound like she was in the lab with him.

In a way, she was; but then again, she wasn't.

' _A paradox_ ,' he remembers faintly. ' _Is an existing state of contradiction_.'

"Who are you?" Kakashi asks coolly.

"Oh," she says quietly, as if just realizing a mistake. Her peaceful expression falters, and she looks down at the outstretched hand, obviously ashamed. "I never introduced myself, did I? That's really rude. I'm sorry."

She retracts her palm, settling it gently on her chest. It takes a moment, but she carefully works her half smile back on to her face.

"My name is Lien," she says. She continues moving her free arm to gesture at the dark wolf beside her, introducing it as well. "This is Urdr, but she usually goes by the name Franky. The red-brown one is Verdandi, who goes by Theresa. They're my cousins."

"Those are terrible names for summons," Kakashi tells her flatly, ignoring the fact that she just claimed two non humans as relatives. It's a reasonable conclusion given the information he has, but not a correct one. If Tenzo had to guess he would say those wolves are actually the same entities that took over Danzo and the Hokage.

Lien cocks her head to the side, drawing her hand away from her chest and settling it on the one named There- Theres-

Senpai is right. Those are awful names. He can't even pronounce them inside his own head.

"Well, I'm not sure what a summon is, but Franky and Theresa are people most the time, so I believe their names fit just fine," the teenager hedges carefully, as if she isn't sure about the logic.

"You don't know what a summons is?" Kakashi asks tonelessly.

"Not in this context, no," Lien answers.

Senpai turns to him then, his hound mask dramatically shaded by the moonlight. It would be intimidating, but the eye behind his mask is entirely exasperated, ruining the effect. He stares at Tenzo for a long second, silently demanding his kohai shed some light on this.

"Lien," Tenzo tests quietly, feeling the name roll in his mouth. It's much better than the other two, at least. "Is a paradox."

If anything, Kakashi's expression grows even less impressed.

"I first met her in a dream I had in Orochimaru's labs, but after I woke up I could still feel the imprint of what she had done," Tenzo hastens to explain in a quiet whisper, trying to describe holding hands without actually saying the words because that would be embarrassing.

"You met her in a dream," Kakashi comments, his voice lacking any inflection at all.

"After that, I thought I made her up but then when I was in ROOT she possessed my body," Tenzo continues, ignoring the lack of reaction.

Kakashi narrows his eye at him.

"-Which doesn't make her real, but then, two other entities possessed… Actually, I'm not sure I can tell you that. It's classified," he stutters out, coming to a halt. Danzo and the Hokage were fairly clear about keeping that between the three of them.

Now his superior officer is full out squinting at him. Tenzo feels sweat begin to bead on the back of his neck despite the airy, comfortable temperature of their surroundings. Technically, senpai has the same clearance level as him, or higher, so that's definitely suspicious.

"Just...she proved herself real, alongside two companions. And now she's definitely here, so she's even more real? And I may be tasked with an ongoing mission to discover more about the group?" he finishes lamely, his voice raising in pitch towards the end.

For a long moment, the two teammates just stare at eachother.

"So let me confirm this. That girl," Kakashi jerks a thumbs towards Lien, and subsequently the wolves, "Started out as nothing more than a dream, then stole your body, along with others, whose identities are classified-"

"-Just to be clear, she didn't steal it so much as she inhabited it at the same time as me. She let me have control when I wanted to, unlike the other two and their hosts-"

"-And now she's somehow teleported here, alongside two wolves with impressive chakra signatures who aren't summons, but are definitely too smart to be wolves."

Tenzo opens his mouth, then closes it. He mouths the words his senpai just said to himself over and over again, confused. (Not that anybody can see it, with the mask and all.)

"I think that's right," he allows after a moment.

Kakashi looks at him, then towards the glade, then back again, nodding to himself once.

"Alright. Yamanaka it is," he declares.

"I...what?" Tenzo asks.

Kakashi breathes in, then pauses, obviously repressing a sigh. His hand remains at his side, close to his shuriken pouch but he seems a bit more steady than he was a few moments ago.

"Mind invasion, Shintenshin techniques, that's all Yamanaka. Chakra repression can be learned. They might have a teleportation jutsu, but I'm going to hope it's just stealth," Senpai says.

Something akin to dread fills Tenzo as he looks down to the girl in the clearing. She doesn't look anything like a Yamanaka, all dark hair and pale skin, but that might not even be her body and senpai has a point. Like most bloodline techniques, the Yamanaka jutsu's themselves are kept hidden, purposefully shrouded in mystery to keep them obscure but what he does know about the family fits.

"You think that she might have actually been there, in the labs?" Tenzo asks quietly. Because she would have to have been, to enter his mind at that point in time. Or at least, she _may_ have been. Orochimaru was toying with bloodlines and there's no telling what he could have done.

"I don't know. I don't know anything about this situation or the suspects. You have more information than I do," Kakashi says evasively. It's clear he's not sure what to think but that he's instinctively attempting to form patterns none the less.

Tenzo turns to the girl below, who looks towards them guilelessly flanked by the hulking lupines. Every now and then her head will tilt and she'll follow a wandering firefly as it blinks by.

"Senpai," he says after a moment. "There were no other survivors from that event, let alone three."

"And Yamanaka cannot live without their body," Kakashi finishes. "I said I didn't know, Kohai. We need more information."

They stand in silence then, watching the trio. Something seems to have caught the dark wolf's attention and it's ears swivel around on it's head. It cautiously drags it's eerie yellow eyes from the two of them to look east and the reddish one mirrors the action, nudging it's nose along Lien's ribs.

She looks down, noting them both and peers in the direction as well. She seems to contemplate the distant treeline calmly, running her hands down their fur. Everything about her is steady and undisturbed. Even her chakra remains tranquil, un-smothered and free.

Kakashi sighs beside him, realizing the problem the same time Tenzo does.

"None of them are hiding their chakra," he states blandly. "Here, on this very covert mission. The one where we are supposed to be hiding everything. Especially chakra."

Tenzo grits his jaw. He has an ongoing mission, but the Hokage and Danzo want information. This isn't going to be easy.

"What's the protocol for possible hostile asset recovery in the face of incoming ambush?" he asks carefully, despite knowing it well.

"You know the drill, Kohai," Kakashi reminds him. "You secure the information, I hold the hostiles. This just turned into a good old snatch and grab."

* * *

There is an overlap between what is real and what makes sense, and despite everything that Lien says, it's fairly large.

For the life of her though, Theresa cannot find it right now.

Before all this, before the world jumping and horribly abrupt changes, Theresa lived her life knowing that everything could be defined. It could be measured, and found within acceptable parameters. Maybe everything wasn't exactly formulaic, but it at least fell within the statistical average. When a pot of water was placed on the stove and the gas was lit, that water boiled when it got up to 212 degrees fahrenheit - consistently.

This is so far outside the statistical average it is overwhelming. Her world view is melting, dripping around her ears like oil.

' _This is impossible_ ,' she thinks distantly, her nose twitching on her elongated face. She can smell something just upwind. Scratch that, she can smell everything, from the rabbit trails winding through the tall grass, to the group of hunters closing in fast from the east.

' _This is happening_ ,' she forces, focusing on that fact. She knows that she shouldn't be capable of such thoughts as a wolf, but that's just it. Wolves shouldn't be capable of higher concepts, and people shouldn't turn into wolves, or jump worlds while they sleep.

The formula she lived her life by before was wrong. All these things that shouldn't be possible are happening to her right now. They were happening to her before, when she wore the body of an old man or became a t-shirt. Presumably, they have been happening to Lien as long she's been alive.

It's hard to reconcile 'impossible' with 'occurring at this very moment'. She can feel her brain trying to distance itself, or worse, just shut down as she attempts to quantify everything.

Her ears swivel around on the top of her head (and isn't that a weird sensation?) and she notes she can hear in two different directions at once. In the east, metal slides free from fabric, and the smell of wariness -harsh and heavy- fills her nostrils.

To the south, the two males Lien spoke to begin to move, heading towards them almost faster than she can track. Franky whips around to face them, snarling at the perceived threat but Theresa knows that her sister is snapping in the wrong direction. She can feel it in her gut, a swooping, lurching sensation that tells her danger isn't coming from the south, but the east.

She isn't wrong.

Instinct drives her, and she's moving before she can even think about it, dancing out of the way of needles that rain down from the sky like water, stinking something bitter and sick. Suddenly her heart rate kicks up and her mind is hopelessly trying to tell her that this is wrong, that it's impossible, but her body is already reacting to the danger that is presenting itself.

The group to the east descends from the trees like owls, silently gliding from the high branches, their hands moving incredibly fast.

Something in her screams that this is too much for them, that they need to flee to need to warn everyone rises in her throat like magma. She can feel it crawl up her throat, and work its way out of her muzzle. They're coming, and they stink like poison and wet earth.

She _yowls_.

"That probably means run," comments the silver haired male idly, and Theresa can barely comprehend anything. She shouldn't be able to understand him, because she's a wolf, and wolves cannot comprehend human languages, only tone and inflection.

More needles rain down from the sky from their attackers. The two males seem to dodge just fine, and Franky makes her way through it somehow, but she and Lien are not so lucky. Thoughts of impossibility are driven far from her mind when two inches of metal bury themselves in her leg, driving a yelp from her jaws.

"A genin could have dodged that!" taunts the enemy as they land, and Theresa has no idea what the fuck a genin is, but it hurts. (Oh god, that's a huge fucking needle. Holy shit, she's bleeding-)

"We aren't ninja," Lien breathes nonsensically, her voice quiet and pained. Her hand is pressed to her shoulder, where the stem of needle sticks out, and Theresa notes a stream of red coating her fingers. What do ninja even have to do with this? (Oh god, oh god-)

"Not ninja?" someone asks, disbelieving. It might be the man with the brown hair.

"Grab the girl and retreat," orders the silver haired man (ninja?) as calm as still water. If anything, he sounds apathetic. Which is crazy, because people are throwing needles at them, she has fur, and she is in pain. He shouldn't be this uncaring about it.

The brown haired male seems to understand though, sweeping through the grass and snatching Lien up as he goes. Theresa lunges after them, wanting to cry as she moves. The thick grass keeps jolting the needle, and it hurts like nothing else she's ever felt before.

In the distance, Franky barks out in alarm, and the scent of ozone and petrichor fills her nostrils, alongside the smell of blood. She flees without thinking as her sister and a stranger fight off attackers using medieval weaponry to amazing effect, keeping pace with a man who can apparently run faster than a quadruped while carrying a kidnap victim.

' _This is impossible,_ ' her brain tells her. ' _This is happening_ ' it says at the same time. ' _It hurts_ ' it adds on simultaneously to the other two.

' _There are new rules,_ ' something quiet whispers in the back of her skull, not quite her brain, and not quite instinct. ' _Find them._ '

* * *

 **AN: Just to point out a hint within a hint. Lien doesn't introduce herself as Skuld.**


	12. Shifts in Perspective

I do not own Naruto. TW death in detail.

* * *

Tenzo doesn't really know anything about the small woman he whisks off the battlefield.

He can't be sure the body she's in is her own, or that she isn't a ninja. He can't really tell her age accurately, or her occupation. He isn't sure if she has family, other than the wolves she's claimed as kin. Tenzo doesn't know if her name is actually real, what Elemental nation she hailed from, or what she likes to do in her spare time.

He can say with absolute certainty that she has been poisoned. Her and the red wolf both.

Kakashi-senpai paces behind him, the dark wolf snarling anytime he comes close to the other two. It didn't take long for them to get rid of their pursuers, barely any time at all, really. But the few minutes it took was enough for the signs to begin appearing in the small female, and it's only gotten worse since then. It started with an accelerated heart-rate, and then the sweating set in. Now she's shaking like a leaf on a tree, panting for breath, still impossibly calm.

The red wolf is better off, most likely because the entrance point is much further away from her central nervous system, and it's larger in size. It's only beginning to pant, but there are no medic nin here, let alone veterinarians.

Tenzo is a trained operative. He's seen death plenty of times before, and this is no different. The girl's skin is turning sallow and waxen, her eyes starting to gloss. In an hour, she'll have faded completely, and that's a very optimistic estimate. The wolf maybe has two or three, if it remains calm.

The operative inside him says that's more than enough time to get information out of her. It also says that, in a few hours, that information will be useless anyway.

"The grass is w-wrong," Lien comments, her voice shaking as much as her hands. She drags her palm through the tall stalks, only coming to rest when it slides up the leg of the red wolf bedded down by her side. They all must make quite a picture, two Anbu, a dying girl and wolf, and their dark guardian in between, all squirreled away in the great hollow of a tree in Grass Country. Like the opening to a very strange joke.

"The grass?" he asks calmly.

"It was shorter. E-even," she responds. She has to pause as her chest seizes in what looks like a painful manner, the muscles near her neck spasming.

Tenzo blinks, realizing that she's referring to the dream they shared. It's so vague to him now, half forgotten at best. He can't remember that place exactly, only the words they said, and the offer she gave him.

"Lien," he asks quietly. "Where is nowhere?"

"Not here, and n-not there," she tells him in a labored gasp. "It's not real. I'm g-going to make it real when we go."

Tenzo looks behind him, making eye contact with his senpai. It's fairly obvious she's not going to be going anywhere ever again to them. The only question that remains is if she should be told that.

"The senbon was poisoned. You're not gonna make it far before you die," Senpai announces briskly, taking the lead on this. It's a bit callous, but honest.

To his surprise, she lets out a breathless laugh, soft as curling smoke. Her tired expression looks serene, and that half smile plays at her lips.

"It's n-not the first time."

"Usually when someone dies, they stay dead. You must not have really died before," Kakashi comments, and Tenzo really appreciates his senpai, he does, but he's not sure Kakashi knows the meaning of tact.

She breathes in, despite how exhausted the effort that it seems to make her. The red wolf keens as she strokes the puncture in its flank.

"M-maybe n-not," she allows. "Depending on your p-perspective of death."

Tenzo doesn't know what to say to that. He simply watches her, his face blank as she rolls her head back to look at the sky.

"And what's your perspective?" Kakashi asks her levelly.

She pauses for a long moment, struggling for air. Her arm twitches violently, jerking at her shoulder as she lies in the grass.

"Death is an exp-perience," she whispers, unafraid.

The dark wolf whines at her words, tearing it's menacing yellow eyes away from the ninja to cast a pitiful look at the two it's protecting.

"You're using a lot of energy up to speak," Tenzo tells her, not quite sure what to make of her words, or the maybe-summon. "The more you talk, the faster you will die."

She goes to open her mouth anyway, continuing the arduous task of stuttering nonsense at them, as if she's eager to make the time pass faster. She chokes out reassurances to her lupine relations, and to the two ninja. At some point the dark wolf gives up guarding against them, shifting to paw at its companions and whine.

It eventually gets hard to make out actual words because of the tremors in her voice. Her whole body is shaking now, beginning to convulse. The wolves become manic as she begins seizing, vocalizing their distress, shuffling to her side as she mouths at them.

Tenzo watches, unable to turn away as the thrashing turns to spasms, and labored breath turns to rattles. He isn't quite sure why he makes himself watch her passing, or what he feels. He's not even sure what she is to him.

There is a moment, a split second, when she turns to face him. Her eyes land on his as the wolves keen, and she smiles at him like she has a secret.

Her heart stops, and the secret reveals itself as her consciousness flees her shell. He feels something inside of his head pull taut, and suddenly it's like his body weighs as much as a mountain. A ribbon wrapped around his mind unfurls, stretched tight, and he's pulled free from his flesh, into the cosmos.

He feels another string, another bond, fluttering behind him as he passes between things he cannot comprehend, until it goes rigid as well. It snaps into place, and he can feel the weight of something else being dragged with him, fluttering in the wake of whatever is pulling them along.

There is no fight, no struggle. He has no hands or feet to fight with. He is simply chakra, directed and pulled, pushed upon by the forces of the universe as he gets towed. He is water, as fluid and malleable as a thought, and suddenly he understands what could not be put into words all that time ago. This is ineffable. Indescribable.

He passes through eternity and everywhere all at once, until he coalesces back again, like liquid being poured into shape. Sensation trickles into him; soft blankets against his hands, the smell of tea, herbs, and wood. He hears the soft rush of air being exhaled, and tastes the inside of his own mouth.

Tenzo opens his eyes to soft sunlight, and an older version of Lien smiling tranquilly down at him, looking for all the world like she hasn't just died a horrible death. It's not real, he tells himself. It can't be real.

"Kai," he whispers.

The room remains, strange and alien to him, as does the ghost.

* * *

Theresa wakes, sobbing out Lien's name in a mournful howl, her heart racing from the phantom poison in her veins.

For a long moment, she doesn't know where she is. She thrashes in her bed, the sheets tangling around her limbs. Tears streak down her face as she recalls her cousin seizing in the grass, her breaths choked out of her by the force of them. She forgets everything except Lien's glassy eyes, and the shaking of her own limbs that heralded the same thing for her.

She comes back slowly, her environment slowly bringing her down. The sheets are not grass, and they are soft instead of scratchy. She cannot smell the sickness and poison lingering in the air, or the wet earth beneath her paws. In fact, she doesn't have paws, or fur, or ears on top of her head, just her own body. Her body which is human and whole, not shaking apart.

She breathes in, holds it until her lungs feel fit to burst, and then breathes out.

Footsteps patter up the steep stairs of their old home. She knows the pattern of the gait intimately, has heard them for years and years, through thick and thin. Theresa breathes in again, and feels her stomach fill with lead.

She breathes out as the door creaks open -no knocks, they're family- and Lien peeks around the doorway, stupid half-smile in place. She's so alive, her hair mussed up from the pillows, and her sleeping clothes wrinkled and stretched. She looks nothing like the sallow skinned, ashen mess that Theresa howled for, and seeing her cousin healthy and whole makes her want to start crying again.

Theresa doesn't burst into tears though, because as the door swings open, it reveals the man -boy?- standing behind Lien.

"We did it," Lien informs Theresa happily, tugging on the masked man's wrist. He's stiff and wary, staring at Lien as if he cannot comprehend the situation."We made the world more real."

Theresa feels so many conflicting emotions in that moment, it briefly feels like her mind is going to tear itself apart. She's can taste the fear and grief lingering on the back of her tongue. (She was dieing, somebody attacked her, attacked her family.) There's impotent rage at the situation, and at Lien, tinged by grief and sorrow. (Oh god, how many times has she died like that? How many gruesome deaths did she wake up from? Would they even be in this mess if it wasn't for Lien? ) Yet happiness and relief fill her heart. (They aren't dead, but alive and well, and gone from that place.) There's shock, and amazement (He's here, that's irrefutable proof, that place is real, real, real.)

"Rules," Theresa croaks, with all the grace of somebody who just woke crying. "There's new rules. The old ones are wrong. I have to find the new ones."

"Make the new ones," Lien adds, but Theresa shoots her a quelling look. That isn't helpful.

The masked male looks between them, and Theresa catches his eyes sparking with recognition at the sight of her auburn hair. He glances again at Lien, almost defensive.

"赤い狼... あなたは何者ですか," he breathes, but her head jumbles the words around without her permission, tracing the ghosts of neural pathways she never had, only borrowed.

' _Red wolf...What are you?_ '

Theresa doesn't know. She doesn't know anymore, but she's going to figure it out. The world doesn't just do this, it's not supposed to be this way. Lien is at the heart of an anomaly, and she's dragging everyone else in with her.

But just as she's getting ready to nab her laptop and spend the day pouring over physics, shouting erupts from the room across the hall from hers, accompanied by barrious thumps and thuds.

"Ain't no lean little fuck like you gonna do me in in my own home!" Comes Franky's startling declaration, shortly followed by what sounds like shattering glass. "You done picked the wrong house, you white haired edge-lord!"

Theresa begins scrambling out of her sheets, eager to assist her sibling, when the door breaks open and a silver haired blur streams out of it, right into Lien and her guest. The hall is too narrow to fit three, and the ceiling too, leaving one result.

The silver boy collides directly with Lien, who is knocked back into the masked stranger by the other masked stranger -she's gotta get names, this shit is confusing- and they all tumble back down the steep steps, crashing down in a jumble of limbs.

Theresa stares at where they all just were, astounded, but a soft cry catches her attention. Franky crosses the hall, stumbling into her room, her eyes swollen and puffy from tears, and she yanks her sister out of the bed and into a hug. Theresa ignores the glittering shards of glass in her elder sibling's short, curly hair, and returns the embrace eagerly.

" 'Resa, that was a bad trip," Franky murmurs, and for the life of her Theresa cannot tell if Franky is just referencing the dream, or purposefully making a horrible pun about what just occurred. "A bad, bad trip."

She slaps her shoulder, just in case. The chuckle her sister gives her, startled and a little wet, means it was probably a bit of both.

Their hold on each other doesn't last long though, no more than a few need to break apart in order to appraise the situation, in case their cousin needs aid.

But Lien is calm as can be, tangled with the invaders at the bottom of the steps. She looks up at the sound of their entrance, her eyes a little dazed, and a bruise beginning to form on her shin.

"朝ごはん?" she queries, the words sliding of her tongue like she was born speaking them. It takes only a second to realize that she's switched languages so everybody can understand what she is saying, because Lien is under the assumption it would be rude to the others or something.

Theresa sighs, defeated and tired despite her sleep. It's too much. Too much nonsense after such a tragedy.

"Breakfast," she agrees.

* * *

This is the best constructed, yet most terribly obvious genjutsu Kakashi has ever been caught in, and it's making him wary.

The environment is a big, gaping void all around them, lacking almost any chakra at all. The people in the room are producing it, because they have signatures, but everything else is….not. It should be a dead giveaway that something is wrong, making it easier to dispel the illusion, but it doesn't. It just makes the place feel foreign and strange, adding in a psychological component to the whole thing.

Nothing smells right either. Smell can be one of the hardest components of an illusion, and to the casters credit there are scents, but _alien_ ones. Ones that even he cannot name, despite being one of the best trackers in the history of Konoha.

The tactile, audio, and visual components of the illusion are hyper realistic. There's no awkwardly bending shadows, or sudden numbness when he goes to touch things. The sounds are natural and layered, the eggs in the pan sizzling louder than the chirping birds outside.

The Copy nin watches with dead eyes as the plump woman -who was a red wolf not even an hour ago- calmly make breakfast. The one who attacked him sits across the table drinking coffee without a care in the world, and the last of them sits at the end of the table with all the serenity of a Buddha.

Everything about the group shouts civilian, from the state of their rooms, to the way they move. His attacker seems to be the biggest threat, and she's….negligible. She's athletic, but untrained , and the cook seems to be much of the same. They are strong and healthy, with above civilian level chakra networks, but ultimately easily dispatched.

Yet, here they are, in a genjutsu that even his Sharingan can't break.

His attacker (Ranki? Sankei?) coughs into her mug awkwardly before setting it down on the table.

"So," she begins, looking up to meet his eye. "Sorry for freaking out on you upstairs. I was maybe emotionally compromised, and that probably wasn't the best way to introduce you to our world."

Kakashi's brain shorts out, but he manages to nod along with her statement. Another world fits the explanation better, but it's also incredibly unbelievable. People just don't travel dimensions, just like imaginary friends don't turn out to be real, wolves don't turn into women, and people don't return to life after dying of poison.

To be honest, everything has taken a turn for the surreal. The genjutsu theory is paper thin, but it's all he's got, and he's doubting everything -enviroment, strangers, Tenzo, himself- as it is.

"Nowhere is another world?" Tenzo asks haltingly, not looking at the speaker, but the woman who Kakashi was fairly certain died as a teenager about an hour ago.

"No, but also yes," Lien responds.

"Lien," grits out the woman at the stove, sounding terribly aggravated. "I can't speak for Franky, but I know that if you say any more wise old master, pseudo-riddle bullshit, I will lose it."

"Theresa, I'm not sure Lien is capable of doing that," The newly-dubbed Franky says. "Besides, she's got the most experience with this out of all of us. Let her talk."

Theresa huffs, obviously upset, her footsteps heavier as she clicks off the stove and stomps over to the table with at least a dozen eggs spread over some sort of flatbread, smothered in a dangerous looking red sauce. Miniaturized pitchforks of incredible craftsmanship are handed out beside the meal, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. He is baffled by the instrument until Franky uses it like a knife and spoon combined.

Somehow, everything becomes even _more_ surreal.

"Lien thinks that nothing is real, and that she can define reality by making more people believe in a subject," Theresa (still a terrible, terrible name) grouses as she seats herself. "I'm looking for something more concrete that that."

"I believe that reality is relative to individual experience, and as such, the more people agree on something existing, the more credit there is behind it's _possible_ existence, but it's still entirely relative to the individual, and ultimately unprovable" Lien corrects gently.

"Individual opinion doesn't have much standing in the scope of things," Kakashi says before he stop himself, because this is philosophy, and it's useless. It's unprofessional, and not what an Anbu should do, but he thinks he's holding together much better than some would in the same circumstance.

"You say that, but Lien's individual opinion used to be that she was dreaming of your world, and it didn't actually exist. Yet here you are, in our world, because somehow her perspective changed and she broke the laws of reality to bring you here," Franky rebuttals.

"I changed my mind. This isn't a genjutsu. This is the Yamanaka mind-shatter technique, trying to make us go mad," he tells them all coolly. That's… that's about the closest answer he can get to right now.

"Yamanaka?" Lien asks. "Like Ino?"

Two sets of eyes slide to the tranquil figure, suspicious and wary. Interest in a young clan heiresses from a stranger is never anything good. Ever.

"How do you know that name?" Kakashi demands.

Lien blinks, unbothered by his looming presence. She turns to his kohai, curious.

"Ino and I shared pieces of our consciousness. You were there, right? In the cell, when we were tied up?"

Tenzo obviously has no idea what she's talking about, his body both stiff and relaxed. His confusion seems to have reached new heights, which only seems to trigger some vague, strange understanding in the girl.

"It hasn't happened yet, then," she says casually. "But safe to say, when Ino comes in wreathed in a cloak of pure energy, I am inside her mind with her. That's where everything starts changing, and reality breaks apart."

With that ominous statement, the woman turns back to her breakfast, as if she didn't just deliver a possible threat. The rest of the gathered stare on as she uses her mini-pitchfork to spear a piece of her flatbread and egg.

"No. No, this is absolutely what I didn't want. No more nonsense babble, I need facts. I love you Lien, but I'm not letting this dimension jumping do to me what it did to you," Theresa states, her chair causing an awful groaning noise as she scoots it back from the table. She stands stiffly, and walks away from them all.

Kakashi watches Franky frown, following the other woman with her eyes. He can see the understanding there, but also the disapproval. She turns her gaze to the smaller woman at the table, who is still eating placidly.

"I get it," Lien soothes without looking up. "I destabilized Theresa's previous worldview, and she's lashing out."

"That's..."

"She thinks my cognitive state is less than desirable. Everyone at this table does to some degree. I accept that."

"Maybe if you could explain clearly, that might change," Kakashi half lies. The women don't seem particularly aggressive, and behave somewhat amicably, but he wants to be as far from them as possible. Even if he had a solid foundation, he wouldn't want to mess with this, and he definitely wouldn't 'desire her cognitive state.'

Lien looks up, and peers around the table calmly. She chews the food in her mouth, considering something in her head carefully.

"Ask Ino, when the time comes. Skuld would know how."

Kakashi stare onwards unblinkingly, beginning to empathize with Theresa. He's known this woman less than a collective four hours, and he's already tired of listening to her speak.

* * *

 **An:I didn't mean for Kakashi to show. He's just an asshole scene-hog who keeps coming up. Nor do I know any of the japanese alphabets, so if that's fucked up, my bad. You can send me a correction, and I'll put it up. I am giving you the power to send me many dick jokes in japanese. Also, sorry for the strange language jumping. As of the second line break, they are speaking the same language, which is like japanese, but not.**


	13. Theoretical Conjecture and History

I do not own Naruto.

* * *

"Sorry for throwing a glass at you this morning."

Kakashi doesn't answer the civilian washing dishes at first, opting to continue staring ahead at the duo still at the table. Lien is peacefully showing Tenzo around the strange, unsettling room, showing off a television that looks a thousand times clearer and sleeker that what they have in Konoha's engineering department. Theresa is in a corner, studying another piece of tech that looks something like a computer, but sleeker and more adaptable in every way. Smaller, more compact, and a with more functions than he can determine from just observing the reflection in the glass behind her. And she just….pulled it out from her room, obviously not trusting the two intruders to be alone with the group, but unwilling to actively participate

It's been over two hours. There is no one he knows who can make a genjutsu last this long.

Sharingan didn't work, fluctuating his chakra failed, and subtly stabbing himself under the able just gave him a wound he had to hide. It's been so long, and nothing has changed. He thought this place would fade, and he would come to in the middle of an attack with the corpse of the woman on the ground, and a forlorn summon who may be specialized in genjutsu to put down.

Maybe he didn't think that. Maybe he just hoped.

The details though, the details of it all. At first glance he had disobeyed his own code, failing to really look underneath the underneath. He was too caught up in everything, letting the strangeness of the situation drag him under, and allowing somebody else to direct the flow of things.

Now he's reviewing everything. They didn't speak code to each other. They spoke another language entirely before they stopped. Thier mannerisms are strange, and one peek around the room tells him that everything else is as well. There are photographs on the wall that capture astounding detail, hanging on the walls as little more than errant decorations. There are books printed in characters he cannot read, made from an alphabet he has never even seen before. The clothes themselves are of a style he hasn't even heard of, let alone witnessed.

It's all wrong. Wrong, wrong, _wrong_.

"It's not the worst thing someone has thrown," he says eventually, still trying to observe everything and everyone, and being hilariously overwhelmed by the conclusion he's reaching. (The architecture is alien, an old farm house but so obviously not-)

Franky hums, rinsing off one of those strange pitchforks, and setting in a drying rack. She seems the most composed out of the gathered, other than him and Tenzo. It's impressive, for a civilian with no training.

"I know. I saw people throw needles and kunai at you not too long ago. And then I saw you shoot lightning at them," She tells him, dipping her hands back in the suds to pick up the plate. The soap smells bizarre to his keen nose, unwelcome and unfamiliar.

"Lightning Jutsu was faster that just throwing more knives back," he tells her, because that's no secret. It should be fairly obvious that jutsu is the the logical escalation to that minor skirmish.

She turns her head to him then, her eyes strange, and expression pursed. He's wary of her, of all these strange women. At least when she was a wolf, he had some sort of footing. Now, he's drifting, scrabbling for any kind of balance.

"Buddy, in this world, nobody can shoot lightning. Or fire, or any other element for that matter. In fact, nobody throws knives accept bored bikers and circus acts anymore either. And we definitely don't go around wearing light armor and painted masks in the middle of the night like vigilant assassins either. That only happens in Lien's world."

Kakashi withholds a breath, because maybe he could discount a few of those things, but not all of them. Not recognizing an Anbu is huge in itself, but throwing weapons sounding absurd? And the way she said assassins, as if it was a joke, and absurd idea at best.

 _Wrong_ , his mind tells him again, like a never ending loop. That's all he can think, apparently.

"Not Lien's world," he settles with, because the implications of the other things are enormous.

Franky huffs, turning back to her work. If he had to guess, he would call the menial task she's doing some sort of coping method. Something safe and routine to focus on in the middle of pure entropy.

"Was to us, for a long time. It was Lien's strange world that she dreamed about when she fell asleep, up until she started dragging us with, and now, bringing other people back," Franky says in a voice that is almost complaining, but not quite.

He turns his gaze to the short, slight woman in question, and he feels distaste well up on his tongue as she chatters to his kohai. It's an unpleasant change from the lingering emptiness that came before it.

"Lien seems to be…problematic."

"Family is family, and she's not too terrible," Franky replies.

Kakashi sends her a glance, noting the physical differences among those gathered. The three women are a study in contrasts, and her would have never guessed them to have any blood ties. It's one she must catch often, because she just shrugs.

"Me and Theresa are half sisters, and Theresa's dad is Lien's uncle," she explains half heartedly.

He hums in acknowledgment, because that would explain the gradient skin tones, from Lightning Country's earthen coloring, to almost Water Country pale. Relation by marriage also explains the vastly different physical shapes, and varied features. He only wishes he could get a clear answer on anything else.

"When you say dreams," he begins leadingly, hoping for anything that might be coherent at this point.

She finishes up the last of the dishes, and pulls the plug in the sink, thinking. He watches her lean against the counter and stare out the window absentmindedly, staring at the tree outside of it.

"I mean dreams. I remember when she first started talking, a little thing that wouldn't shut up. She used to babble at us about a Sage she met with ripples in his eyes, and land she watched become Iwagakure. We thought she would grow out of it, and in a way, she did. Lien stopped talking about it to other people after a while," Franky enlightens him calmly. "And she only told us because we made a joke of it. We have a dream interpretation book upstairs and everything."

Kakashi doesn't speak, because everything she just said makes him want to shout 'impossible'. The Sage of Six Paths is a myth springing from the origin of ninja itself, but Iwagakure was only founded around ninety-five years ago. The time disparity is enormous, and nobody just dreams themselves up another plane of existence.

"Apparently your cousin dreamed through our glorious history," he comments dryly, his head spinning.

"From what I've seen, your world is a fucking nightmare, not a dream," the woman returns, slowly turning to look at him. Her eyes are cool and detached, but there is conflict inside them. Fear and hurt mingling with a loss that was, and yet wasn't. "It's terrible and frightening. Last night I watched my family die a horrible, violent death, and you killed people without pause. You're sitting in my home in tactical gear, with a fucking sword on your back, and I hate it."

Kakashi forces himself to meet her hazel eyes, and he reminds himself that for all the level headedness she has displayed, she is ultimately a civilian. That she is, apparently, not used to this. More than anything else, he reminds himself that she is scared.

"Tell me how to get to Fire Country from here, and we'll leave," he says, because he will. He'll get up and go as soon as he figures out how to.

Franky laughs, a little loud, but not overly so. He'll give her this; she is the most composed of the group, but he thinks she may just be compartmentalizing at an incredible rate just to continue functioning. She's running in emergency mode constantly, and there's no surer way to burn out.

"Fire Country isn't any place I've ever heard of on this entire planet. You wanna get back, you have to wait for Lien to start dreaming again. That's the only way we travel."

Well then, Kakashi thinks sullenly, staring at his teammate, and said girl. _Well then_.

* * *

"-So this world doesn't actually have the same ambient radiation, or chakra, as you know it. If we anything at all, it's unusable to us. Well, most of us. There are Qui Dong masters and monks who have been recorded boiling water in their palms, or consciously controlling their heart rates and body temps, but no jutsu. However, theoretically speaking, since your body somehow produces chakra, you should be able to pull off small level feats. Just remember replenishing chakra will be an issue since you can't pull it from your environment, or rather, gather it from an foods as one might with ATP."

Tenzo blinks from behind his mask, trying, and failing, to come to grips with this whole situation. Everything has gone sideways in his head. This is not only outside his regular mission parameters, but also so far from what he expected it can barely be classified as real, let alone ranked. He doesn't think for a moment he can make this into a legible mission report. No matter how hard he tries.

"Also, I can't tell if your civilization is ahead of ours, or behind it. I'm not sure how long I've been jumping, but I'm fairly certain it can be contained in a millennium or so. The recorded history of this world, however, dates around five thousand years, and there are fields that study times before that as well-"

 _Five thousand years_ , echoes inside his head, rattling around again and again. That is...that is such a long time. Konoha is the oldest of the founding hidden villages, and it's only a hundred years old. The capital is maybe three hundred. Five thousand is….is...unthinkable.

It's like he's having a stroke. She's saying words, but only a spare few register. He can't stop trying to find the chakra around him, the chakra that is barely there at all, save for in the humans themselves. If he was forced to use a metaphor, it would be like seeing nothing but the dimmest blurs after having perfect vision. This world is hollow and empty, no matter it's _five thousand years_ of recorded history alone.

"-not even getting into technology, or geography. Language is another issue, because yours seems to be something akin to japanese, which sprang from chinese, only I don't recognize your characters and the parallels are spotty at best. I mean, a japanese speaker might be able to pick up on the jist of what we were saying, but not entirely. Seeing how it should have evolved entirely different to ours, that's not that strange. Frankly, I'm surprised there is any likeness at all. In fact, I'm surprised there are any parallels, if we consider the multidimensional theory. Of course, the branching theory of the multiverse might work, but I don't see the divergence point. Unless it has yet to happen yet in this world," Lien continues, seated in the lotus position on the grass. It's the most he's ever heard her speak, and he knows she's making some sort of sense, but she's assuming he has knowledge he doesn't. Trying to work off a foundation that doesn't exist for him.

He thinks that may be the problem. Lien, from what he can see, is coherent to an extent. She is just working off of a system that relies on logic which bases itself in events and data that isn't universal. Or, unfortunately, data that may be _trans-_ universal.

(Or not even real, if he ascribes to her theory that none of it works because it isn't real in the first place.)

"None of this explains anything," he interrupts, trying to focus on anything other than the weirdness of this all. Root conditioning didn't prepare him for this situation, and neither did Anbu training. He needs something to pull him back, an answer to any of this. "Why were you there at the lab? Why show up at the Root base? Why am I wherever this is now?"

Lien blinks, and her eyes slide off to the side. If he follows her gaze, he knows he will see senpai and the other two women, where they sit in awkward, stiff silence. His senpai is practically radiating unease as Franky tends to minor chores, keeping an eye on everyone as best a civilian can.

"All you know and feel is reducible to the actions of minute particles in the human brain, and has no bearing on the physical plain. However, if you follow that logic, you are trusting those same particles, and that same brain, to tell you it's false," Lien answers him.

"That's...not an answer," Tenzo retorts after a moment.

She nods, as if she understands his dilemma.

"And there it is. There is no answer. Some things are random, immeasurable and unknowable. Ultimately, I can only control myself as the forces of the universe enact themselves upon me."

He stares at her then, because that actually makes an astounding amount of sense, in one way. In another, however, if explains nothing at all. Essentially she's saying she's a victim of circumstance trying to make the best of things. Yet he knows that's not possible.

"You said you'd show me nowhere. You planned on bringing me here. That's not the forces of the universe, you did that," Tenzo accuses stiffly. He doesn't know her, not really. He doesn't know anything at all, and the more this situation goes on, the less he is convinced there is a solid foundation to know. The more he listens, the more it seems like chaos and madness reigning over what once was reality.

She smiles, and it's an enigma in itself. It's such an innocuous thing. A tiny grin on a small woman, but it seems disturbing to him. Unnatural.

"I did, but only by acting alongside the forces. I did not plan to die when I fell asleep last night. That was random chance. A random force that I took advantage of, because my consciousness was already leaving my body, and directing it was easy once my heart stopped," she admits readily.

Tenzo feels the stirrings of unease in his gut, because she's so callous about the death. So unmoved by it. He's seen chuunin who would react more than this civilian is.

"I'm learning," she says, leaning forward a bit so she's angled toward the sun, soaking up it's light like some sort of bizarre tree. "Ino showed me that minds can can ride the tides of the Dao, and tie together minds that feel familiar. I with some work, drag them across dreams. I just follow what calls me, like this body in this world. I know it so well, it's become an anchor."

His logical mind tells him that what she is saying is impossible, but the evidence before him tells him that _something_ is happening. All morning he was shown wonders that should not exist. A television of astounding quality, used to entertain, inform, and market instead of spy. Animated drawings a people flashed across it's surface, and the women ignored it as nothing more than mundane. There was a phone, or something they called a phone, that fit into the palm of Theresa's hand as she called somebody to babble at in a strange, rhythmic language.

The machines they have, numerous and various in their design, are more than any common civilian should be able to obtain. The garden out front, sprawling and well cared for, teems with varieties of food he cannot name, and not a single tree in the forest surrounding the property looks familiar.

Don't even get him started on the vehicles. He's seen trains in Frost country, but never has he seen whatever a _car_ is.

"In the end, nothing seems to have been explained," he redirects, feeling the conversation has somehow begun to turn into a twisting mess. A mirror of his life, perhaps.

She hums noncommittally, closing her eyes.

"I imagine it would be a difficult story to explain clearly. You cannot tell it, only live it."

Tenzo withholds a deep sigh. There's no way he can make this into a satisfactory report, as there has been no solid information gleamed. No way at all. He's not even going to try.

He gets up, hoping that if he moves far enough away from whatever anomaly Lien is, everything will start making sense again. He picks his way through the ankle high grass as the hot, humid temperature makes sweat bead underneath his armor, and makes his way to the veranda where his senpai lurks underneath the shadow of a sprawling vine.

With a dazed air, Tenzo comes to stand beside him, and their shared glance says it all. Neither of them has any clue what to make of the situation. There's no plan they can come up with, no action to execute. Only vast amounts of confusion.

"Franky says that we can travel back when Lien goes to sleep, but only then," Kakashi tells him, as if that is any sort of comfort.

"Lien...has many theories about everything," Tenzo offers back in return.

Kakashi doesn't answer, save to look at the woman who has gotten up from her seat in the grass, and wandered over to the garden. It seems household chores cannot be put on hold, even for the insane, and she stoops now and again to pluck a weed.

"Tenzo?"

"Yes?"

"Next time you have an imaginary friend, can you try and keep them imaginary?"

Tenzo doesn't dignify that with a response, only casting his commander a blank look. Frankly, he's not convinced that all of this isn't imaginary.

* * *

 **AN: This chapter is barely edited. If you see really big, obvious shit I missed, please tell me. I still have no beta for this, so all mistakes are on me.**


	14. Back to the Start

I do not own Naruto.

* * *

Time becomes fluid, and it seems to the group that the hours of the day crawl sluggishly onward and race with a rapid swiftness at the same time.

It's strange to watch the group of women continue on with their everyday life. Lien tends to the garden after their talk, weeding, watering, and pulling down the ripe produce that neither Anbu can name before setting her sights on the house. Franky stiltedly loads a wheelbarrow of cut wood from the edge of the forest to a furnace beside the house, checking the flames inside. She then checks the henhouse at the edge of the yard, and returns from the coop with a basket full of speckled brown eggs, asking them if they require anything. The answer in the negative, and she busies herself until lunch. During the meal, Theresa emerges from her computer long enough to sweep and do laundry, muttering furiously to herself as she hangs a load of linens in the sun to dry, refusing to even look at them.

It's surreal, all of it. From the map of the planet -not country, not nation, _planet-_ printed on the a shower curtain, with it's strange land masses and impossibly large surface, to the insects that crawl along the leaves. The phones are tiny, wireless things that operate on touch alone, and the Anbu duo spend hours trying to figure out if its applications have an end. They flick from the finger dexterity training games, to a radio of some sort, to a text-based message system with an alien alphabet, and it never seems to end. There's even a camera on there, which they make sure to point away from themselves.

The sunlight fades, and the tension in the group seems to grow. A sense of anticipation wells in the air as Tenzo and Kakashi wait on the couch, and Theresa comes stumbling down the stairs in a rush, carrying a videocamera that no civilian should have.

"Theresa...where did you even find that old thing?" Franky exclaims as her sister hastily busies herself in the corner of the room, still using the common tongue shared between them all for propriety's sake.

(Also, old? Old!? That thing is tiny in comparison to the shinobi card camera. It's sleek, and beautiful, though not as comely as the phone. The things ninja could do with surveillance equipment of that size are quite literally worth killing for.)

"Found it in the boxes we packed away last spring. I want evidence, Franky. Real evidence that this isn't a mass hallucination or a trip into insanity. The laws of the universe are going tits up, and I have to start somewhere," Theresa bites out, responding in the same language.

Kakashi is already up and off the sofa, edging out of what he assumes to be the range of the lens. Personally, Tenzo thinks that they don't know enough to judge what kind of distance that thing has.

"So you're going to videotape people sleeping? Theresa, that's creepy. You didn't even ask permission to record them," Franky scolds

Theresa interrupts her with an indelicate snort, continuing despite the warning tone. Tenzo finds it odd that she's already dressed in sleep clothes, despite the early hour.

"They haven't even given us names to call them," Theresa continues, as if they aren't in the room. "There is no politeness in this situation. I'm just trying to do what's best for us, and besides, I already uploaded picture of them on the cloud-"

"You need to get rid of them," Kakashi orders, as soon as he understands the meaning of what has been said. It's unfortunate that it comes out so demanding, but they are shinobi. No self respecting ninja of any rank should ever allow their image to be recorded while on a mission, let alone two Anbu running covert ops.

The women continue to politely disregard their existence though, and Kakashi seems to be done with simple observation. He shifts his stance, commanding their attention with the tiniest sliver of killing intent.

Tenzo regrets the necessity for the action, but they cannot have their images about. Even if this place is nothing more than a hallucination, and the women have been nothing but courteous.

Theresa freezes for a moment, her back turned to the nin. Franky goes still in her seat as well, and almost as one, the two sisters turn to face the nin, eerily in sync. It is good to see that killer intent can be read wherever they are, at least.

"Get rid of them," Kakashi orders again.

"You can't make me," Theresa tells them with a shaking voice, defiance dripping from her form.

Kakashi takes a step forward, as if to display that he is the one with the power here, the one in control. In return, Franky rises from her chair, her gaze locked on to the ninja.

"It's a matter of security," Tenzo adds, hoping they will understand. Surely even their culture has a concept of secrecy and security. "There are laws-"

"-In your world," Franky interrupts, eyes dark, but attempting to understand. "There are laws in your world, maybe, but this isn't your place. This isn't your country or culture, it's ours, and you have made a grievous error according to our etiquette by giving orders to us in our own home."

Kakashi seems to realize that he has stepped over some sort of boundary here, though he doesn't relent, only switching tactics. The killing intent disappears, but the tension still lingers. It's a volatile environment, and Tenzo suddenly wishes he hadn't spent the day watching them simply go about their routine. It occurs to him these civilians aren't like the ones back home, giving into a shinobi due to their reputation. They don't seemed trained to fight in the ways he's familiar with, but Franky brought up an excellent point. This isn't their culture, their civilisation, and he has no idea how things work in this place.

What if there is a different sort of fighting here? What makes a civilian, afraid and seemingly unarmed, have enough courage to face a superior force? What is 'the cloud', and how can somebody store information on it?

They don't know enough. They acted with a miniscule amount of intelligence, and it's brought them here.

"We do not feel secure with unauthorized surveillance," Kakashi tries, attempting for an emotional appeal, and giving the appearance of control back to the women. It would be a good play, back home.

"And we don't feel secure with strangers in our home," Theresa returns caustically. "Especially when they have given us no reason to trust them."

Kakashi pins her with a look she unhesitantly returns, her jaw clenched, a muscle standing out on her cheek. She seems jumpy, as if she's in a rush to complete some duty.

"We have done you no harm," His senpai reminds them. Again, Tenzo thinks they are going about it wrong. It would work back home, yes, but here….here the absence of violence could mean nothing. In fact, it could be an implied threat. That they haven't harmed them, but they could at any time. It's all alien, and he doesn't know what to say or do. How does Lien-?

"Last night my sister was poisoned, and my cousin died," Franky reminds him coldly.

"That wasn't us. Those were opposing ninja," Tenzo tries to tell them, but he realizes it's in vain, because he realizes they have no way to tell that. These women are just as ignorant of their culture as the ninja are of theirs. Everybody is acting blind, going about thing the way they think is best while the opposite side tells them they are wrong. He racks his mind for some way to prove that to them, any way at all.

"Ask Lien," he attempts, because she would know, right?

The room somehow stills further, because that is the terrible reality of the situation they all find themselves in. No one trusts anybody, nothing makes sense, and the only one who seems to have a clue seems to think that the answer is that there is no answer. If he were a lesser ninja, he would choke on his frustration.

"Lien isn't available right now," Theresa tells them, and there is something underneath her words. It isn't the tone of her voice, or her body language, but Tenzo can almost taste an omission of facts.

"Is she ever?" Kakashi asks them, definitely not helping.

"She's not available," Theresa repeats, gritting her teeth. There is a flash of the malcontent she has been hiding, the frustration and fear that has lingered in her all through the day.

"Theresa," Franky calls sternly.

"Just make it a yes or no question," Tenzo suggests, but the woman's eyes are flinty, and she glances away. Something crawls up Tenzo's spine, a flash of concern he is fairly sure he shouldn't feel for somebody who invaded his mind and body.

" _Theresa_ ," Frank says again, sounding angry. The tone sets off even more alarms in Tenzo's head.

"She consensented. I told her what I was going to do, and she agreed to drink the tea," Theresa defends quickly.

" _You can't drug someone because you feel uncomfortable,_ " Franky bites out, her eyes tearing away from the ninja to glare at her sibling. There is palpable fury in her gaze, her lips pulled tight against her teeth.

"I'm trying to re-establish everything here Franky, and she was willing!" Theresa exclaims, abandoning the equipment she had been setting up, whirling on her sister. Frank stares back, disappointment and concern warring in her gaze. "It was just to hurry along the whole process!"

"She's not in the right mind, Theresa! You took advantage of her to satisfy your own goals, to complete and experiment, and that's messed up on so many levels."

Theresa visibly winces at her sibling's words, but remains adamant. There is guilt hidden in her features though, as if she knew the actions had been questionable.

"It's just what we drank last time, maybe a little stronger," She says in a smaller voice, less sure than before.

"No, Theresa. You did something incredibly fucked up," Franky asserts, her hands trembling with the force of her admonishment.

"I did it to gain some sort of control!"

"It was dangerous, and arrogant. We don't know how any of this works-"

"-That's the point, I'm trying to figure-"

"-Accumulated trauma-"

"-Strangers with swords, who shoot-"

"Tenzo," Kakashi breathes, barely loud enough for him to hear over the shouting match that has sprung up.

The younger man focuses himself, squashing his concern down, and shoving the distraction the sisters present into the back of his head. He flicks his eyes over to his captain, finding the man has gone still as he stares at the corner where the surveillance equipment stands. Tenzo glances that way, and finds himself freezing as well.

The video camera is sprouting.

His mouth goes dry as grass begins to emerge from behind the lens, reaching upward for sunlight that is nowhere to be found. Quicker than nature ever intended, a slim vine crawls down the side of the tripod, and green leafs begin to emerge.

"It's not me," he says earnestly.

Tenzo hears the creak of a fingerless glove as his captain's fingers flex towards his weapons pouch, and the shouting becomes nothing more than background noise as the growth begins to spread, each stalk of grass, and each leaf bursting into existence, taking over the area where the camera rests. His logical mind tells him he needs to run, but something freezes him in place.

Like the extension of fingers, colors slip into the room increasingly fast. They drop to the floor and begin slithering across it, bright snakes of jade that grow on and on. Seeds fall down from the grasses to clack against the hardwood floors before bursting open with fresh, healthy blades. Ferns unravel with a sound almost like a sigh, rustling in a breeze that doesn't exist, advancing on their hosts.

Tenzo draws a breath, and turns to warn the bickering sisters, but when he tries to look at them directly they are gone, already replaced with brambles. A forest that didn't exist a heartbeat ago stretches out beyond what he can see, wild and old beyond measure, shifting and flickering. There's no possible way it could have appeared without his notice, but it's there, morphing before his eyes.

He whirls, senpai's name on his lips, but the other man is looking at him from behind his mask with bewildered horror as he dissolves into dried leaves, ashen and white in color.

He sucks in a breath, attempting to stumble toward the pile that is already dispersing on the wind, but a shock of pain shoots through his legs when he tries. Roots have tangled themselves around his feet, and he shudders as they climb his ankles. He yanks as hard as he can, tearing himself out of their grasp and staggering back from force of it.

His eyes dart up, and he is suddenly in high alert. He tries to find some semblance of the room he was in, but It's completely gone, replaced by a tangled wood that seems untouched by man, somehow shivering and moving. The sky above is a painting in motion, the stars blurring as they race across the moonless night, no hint of the ceiling left. The furniture has disappeared, alongside the walls, and everything that was.

His mind skitters in his skull, trying to come to terms with it all, and his breath shakes in his lungs as he scans his surroundings, looking for some sort of reason. There is nothing he can think of, not a single reason for this to be happening.

As if to answer him, a tree breaks through the soil in front of him. He notices the dirt is crimson, soaked red with a too-familiar substance. It grows rapidly, like everything else, stretching beyond the amorphous world around it, reaching toward the churning night sky. It's trunk thickens into something colossal, bulging and warping. Branches emerge, lengthening into boughs that could support the weight of a town, growing leaves that block out the starry night

From its cavernous roots, a figure grows. It seems to flicker and change from old to young, male to female, human to animal. The person has dark skin, then pale; long hair, then short. They become shorter and taller in a fraction of a second, growing limbs only to lose them. It is a bird, a dog, a horse, a human, and back again. It keeps changing the way that the world around them keeps growing, until a cacophonous cracking sound stops it all.

A heart beat of silence follows, and then creaking fills the air like a wail. The groaning of wood fills his ears, accented by ominous splintering as the mountainous tree collapses in on itself. The branches disappear, and the spinning stars return to view. The full moon shines down on the world below, existing now where it did not before, perfectly still in the hectic sky. It illuminates everything below it, its silvery light shining down on the shifting figure that has finally settled on one familiar body.

"You," he calls, breathless from what he has witnessed. "What is-?"

Lien's lips try and turn upward, but they falter and drop, her eyes staring through him. She looks hollow, devoid of something integral. A puppet carved out to look like a human, but ultimately nothing more than a shell.

"Was all of this a dream?" he asks, because he can think of nothing else. What does one say in this instance? What does one do? When, exactly, does it become okay to start attacking because he doesn't understand, and his captain _just turned into leaves._

He just wants to go home. He wants to see senpai, to forget this all happened. He wants it all to stop.

"I was trying to make it all real. I don't know if it worked," she answers honestly, still staring forward, sightless. The flora around them trembles in time with her breathing, and he feels fear creeping into his bones. The way the moonlight caresses her is foreboding, and he shivers as the shadows around them distort.

"You have to know," He tells her, struggling with the growing trepidation and panic inside of him.

Like a switch being hit, her gaze focuses on him, and he almost wants her to go back to watching nothing again. There is a weight to her eyes that feels tangible.

"I don't decide what's real," she tells him. "I can try and convince you, but ultimately you have to choose what to believe."

The proclamation startles out a laugh, because he isn't deciding anything. He lost control of the situation the moment she showed up, and it's all been steadily going downhill from there. It's terrifying, if he's honest, because his whole life has been about control. In the labs, it was about controlling his mind so he didn't lose it, and in Root, it was about exerting control over his body to serve Danzo. Anbu is about exerting control for the sake of his village.

He has none of that now. Not even a hint of it.

"You're insane," he tells her, but it feels like he's admitting his own madness as well.

She doesn't deny it, doesn't speak at all as she glides forward, slipping through the greenery towards him. He doesn't run from her, though he wants to. He's just so tired, resigned to whatever comes next in this insanity.

She comes close, far enough away that someone could stand between them if they chose, yet near enough to lift her hand to his own. Her fingers feel like leaves against his, and she smiles her half smile at him, though it seems less serene, and somehow sad. Like she knows his choice, can read it in his eyes.

He closes his eyes, suddenly exhausted. She said she doesn't get to decide for him, that he has to choose.

"This is just a dream then," he decides, as if his words can make it come true. "A nightmare."

He feels a thumb brush against the back of his hand, somehow comforting even though it should be anything but.

"I will wake up, and still be on the mission. Senpai will have let me doze off before we make the final push into Fire Country out of Grass, and you'll still be some person of interest I have to gather information on," he dictates. "None of this will be real, just a side effect of a bad ration bar."

He hears a hum, and for a long moment, everything is calm. His mind feels like it's shaking, like something is gently pulling him free, the same way it never happened in the glade after Lien died. For a moment he is weightless, moving through the universe as nothing more than energy, and he brushes closer than ever to the ineffable, indescribable thing he saw before.

Then he is aching all over, worn out from a long mission. The smell of wet earth and pollen greets him, a scent distinct to Grass Country.

Tenzo wakes up, and it is as he said it would be.

He blinks his eyes, and his captain is standing watch in the field where it all began. There are no wolves to be seen, no women waiting in the glade below. Only the night sky and his partner, and he send the journey home erasing everything from his mind. Kakashi is strangely quiet on the way back, but he doesn't comment on it, too wrapped up in trying to put the whole experience from his mind.

It didn't happen. It never occurred. It was just a dream.

He tells himself this again and again, for weeks, then months. Life goes on much the same as it did before, with no hint of instability. He picks up rumors of something called the One-and-Three, turns it over to the Hokage, and never breathes a word of what he has convinced himself was a horribly vivid nightmare.

It's not until the day Ino Yamanaka is brought into T&I, surrounded by a cloak of chakra, that the delusion comes crashing down.

* * *

 **AN:IDK man. Also, still operating under my own power. All mistakes are my own, no beta, so please point of errors. But, like, be gentle and shit. My ego is eggshell thin.**

 **Edit: Shout out to Vasher in the reviews for pointing out some errors.**


	15. Metaphor and Reality

I do not own Naruto.

* * *

Ino Yamanaka, eight years old and chained to a chair in the depths of T&I, sucks in a harsh breath to attempt to dispel the penetrating sense of loss permeating her body. She would like nothing more than to curl into a ball and cry for a while, but Hokage-sama is still staring at her like she's gonna explode.

Ino doesn't even wanna look at the old man right now though. Daddy will have a fit when he finds out about it, calling it disrespectful or something, but Ino blames Hokage-sama for Lien's departure. It's his fault she feels so empty right now, so infinitely tiny and hollow. Lien was so much more, a dream, a consciousness that didn't need a body. She was a self sustaining mind that forwent physical form, a construct of pure chakra that traversed everything, even time itself.

Ino lets out a whine, her nose filling with snot. She wants to hide her face in her knees, but the shackles binding her to the chair won't let her.

"Tears will get you nowhere," The Sandaime informs her harshly, and Ino knows. She knows that the Hokage can't be sure that Lien is really gone, even if the chakra cloak has disappeared, and she knows that the Hokage is just trying to do his job. She knows about stress responses, and past influences affecting current psychological states. Ino is more aware than ever of the influences of the mind, because Lien showed her. Lien built on years of clan training, and provided names for things nobody even knew existed here.

Ino knows so much now.

"This isn't a dream," Hokage-sama asserts again, and Ino cannot help but sniffle at that, moisture seeping down her cheeks. Of course it's not a dream. She's here in her own physical world, tied to a chair, being interrogated by the leader of the village who just convinced an extra dimensional construct that everything is fake.

"I know it's not a dream," Ino sobs out, her voice thick. She feels mucus in the back of her throat, and knows she looks ugly. She wants to go home, to figure out what she is now that Lien and her have done what they have done. Is she still eight, mentally? Is she even human, mentally? There's so much information in there now, so many memories and ideas. Years and years and years, enough to make it feel like her brain is swelling inside her skull.

There is a pause then. A silence where Ino can only hear her own sad sounds echoing around the chamber.

"Ino or Lien?" The Hokage demands of her. He sounds stern, angry, but Ino is a Yamanaka. She can hear the confusion in there as well. She was trained to.

"Ino," the girl answers, opening her eyes and looking up at the village leader forlornly. Her vision is all blurry now, and no amount of blinking will clear it.

"If you are really Ino, then you will hopefully understand that the restraints are not for you, but for the dangerous entity that is inhabiting your skin," Sandaime says almost gently. Like he is trying to assure the little girl that was, before all this began.

That little girl isn't there anymore, though. The Ino here now isn't the Ino that started this.

"Her name is Lien,and you made her leave," Ino chokes at him, frustrated and sad. Lien might not be like them, but she exists. She's a person. She has a name, deserves to be called it.

Hokage-sama casts her a pitying glance, and Ino is so frustrated she wants to shout. He doesn't get it. He doesn't know what happened, doesn't understand how much everything is going to change.

"I cannot know that, not for sure."

"Then get daddy," Ino says, knowing perfectly well what a brat she is being. It's beyond rude, almost punishable, disrespectful, to give the Hokage himself orders.

"Unfortunately, Inoichi is compromised when it comes to his family. Especially his daughter. He knows this well," Hokage-sama informs her, and it makes sense, but it also hurts. He's her dad, and he's supposed to be here. He's supposed to protect her, keep her safe, not leave her chained up in an interrogation cell.

But it's for the good of the village, Ino knows. More than that, she understands, and can comprehend concepts that seemed alien and strange. Empty words that have no meaning in this language flitter through her mind, things like ' _nationalism_ ', ' _national security_ ', and something about the good of the colony, queen, and hive.

"We will have another verify your identity soon enough, but you said that you and Lien shared, Ino," Hokage-sama continues. The way he says her name drips with doubt. He's letting her hear it, letting her know he does not trust her. "You said she dreams this."

"It's not though," Ino sniffles. "It's not a dream, it isn't all a dream."

"Can you clarify, Ino? Can you tell me how Lien does what she does?"

"She's like me," Ino manages to work out, trying to get the Sandaime to understand. "Like a Yamanaka, but she doesn't know. Her mind isn't trapped in one form, and she never grounded herself, so she lost track of her body, and the world it was in. When she sleeps, it breaks free. "

"So she has a body?" The Hokage asks, fishing for something he can hold on to. Something he can protect himself from. Then his eyes flicker to the side, as if considering her words. "Losing her body...I thought Yamanaka are tethered to their body no matter what."

"We are," Ino mutters. "We can always find our way back, because our body makes our chakra, and that's what we transfer. There's connection back to the world."

There's a choking noise from the corner of the room, and Ino makes a horrible sound of surprise in reaction to the Anbu's exclamation of epiphany. She'd forgotten he was there, honestly.

For a moment, the Sandaime looks both amused and pitying at the startled expression on her tear stained, probably snot covered face, but it's gone so quick she can't be sure. Either way, she resolves to look perfect in the future, so nobody will ever look at her like that again.

"Cat," The Hokage calls, and the operative fidgets. Ino's sight is still blurry from tears, and she's not positive, but the man seems to be unnaturally still. Like he's gone into shock.

"Hokage-sama," The agent returns, sounding somewhat breathless.

"Is there intel I missed in her statement?" He drawls, sounding both reprimanding and serious in his question.

"I believe the implications are that the entity becomes a self sustaining chakra construct," he says hoarsely.

"It has to have a body," The Hokage states adamantly.

"The statement was that the entity is not 'trapped in one form'. Likely, it has more than one."

Ino sniffs, glad to have someone understand her. She tries to crane her neck far enough to wipe her face on her shoulder, but it only kinda works.

"Lien has a stable body in one world, but I don't think it's the right one. That's why she's coming to this one, because her real body is somewhere, still making chakra, and she needs to find it again. She jumps here, taking on other forms that keep her at a fixed point for a time, but they don't actually stabilize her," Ino says, knowing that no eight year old should know this. That no child should understand what she said. But Lien had bits and pieces, wrapped as they were, and she shared them before leaving Ino empty, only half understanding the world around her.

The Hokage stills, so that not even his robes move. His eyes have gone hard as he begins to acknowledge the statements.

"You are saying somewhere in this world, there is something generating vast amounts of chakra, and its consciousness vacated it for an unknown reason to travel to another world, and it returns in an instinctive attempt to find it's real physical form, and every other form it takes is transient, so any harm done to the impermanent, assumed physical form is null," The Hokage demands cooly.

There is a pause, like the Anbu is hesitant to say more.

"It's also not subject to time. So long as the physical form exists, the consciousness will be dragged back sporadically, and it would be a nonlinear experience," the unknown agent eventually continues. "Such an experience would seem like a hallucination or dream, especially if time passes differently there, and the body in the other world is stable enough to only allow the consciousness to slip during sleep."

The Sandaime only just stops himself from groaning. Ino watches the sound travel up his wrinkled throat and get caught just below his jawline.

"A time travelling consciousness, looking for it's lost physical form, which is capable of generating massive amounts of chakra. One that has no idea it is any of those things, and now believes both worlds are a dream," he corrects roughly.

Silences reigns in the cell, and Ino feels like screaming. They don't get it, they don't understand. She's not a _thing_ , she's a _person_. She has a mind, emotions, memories, thoughts, and ideas. She's seen so much, known so much, and she just wants-

She wants to be.

"Her name is Lien," Ino asserts, because if nothing else, Ino can do this. If she can't get them to recognize that Lien is a person, then she will remember that fact. She may only be eight, and way out of her depth, but Ino can at least give Lien some sort of grounding here. She won't let her friend float endlessly in the abyss without a tether to guide her back.

It's not that hard really. All she has to do is remember that it all exists, that it's all real. Above all else, she just has to remember that though she might only sometime be human, Lien is a person. She can believe in that.

The Hokage turns back to look at her, his gaze piercing and stern. Ino knows that she's being strange. The Sandaime is worried about the existence of all these things, and anxious about what they could mean. He wants to know the implications of it all.

The Anbu, however, tilts his head in the slightest of nods. If Ino hadn't been trained to read body language since infancy, she would have missed it.

"Lien," he repeats, and the old man lets him, assuming it to be nothing more than a pacifying gesture, but Ino knows better.

Despite the situation, and her own tiredness, she smiles.

It's only a tiny string, a miniscule root in the ground, but it's something. After all, a tapestry cannot be woven without thread, and trees cannot grow without a root.

* * *

Fusang.

That's what Lien's Papa called it, when he told her the stories he was told as a boy. Her mother knew it as the Bohdi tree, which shaded Buddha as he attained enlightenment, and it has never had just one name.

The Norse called it Yggdrasil, a great yew whose branches bore the weight of the nine realms, on which the fates carved the destinies of men. In Hinduism it is known as the Akshaya Vata, an eternal banyan tree that exists despite the cyclical creation and destruction around it, grounded by roots that stretch to worlds beyond. In Mesoamerica, the Maya know it to be a ceiba tree, and it is an axis mundi that connects the heavens, the earth, and the underworld too. Islam knows it as the Tree of Immortality; Judaism the Tree of Life; Christianity, The Tree of Good and Evil.

Lien stares at its remains, the diameter of the stump left behind large enough to build a city on, and she feels a sense of … something.

She wanted so much for the boy from the hive, that _Ne_ child, to immediately believe in both worlds, for him to help make the world a little bit more real on the spot. She selfishly wished for his shift in perception to happen right away.

And she wants it to happen fast. An individual perception is the basis of one's understanding of reality, yet an individual can change perceptions, both theirs and others, and therefore can change reality. He could have made it more than a dream right then.

But he didn't. He chose another path.

The sky above her whirls like a movie stuck in fast forward, silver stars speeding into blurs around the stationary moon, making shadows dance across the corpse of the divine tree. The forest, wild and alive, continues growing as she muses.

"That's the fatal flaw, isn't it?" she asks to the empty glade.

The moonlight slides over her skin, like a mother's reassuring touch. It seems to be the only one to acknowledge how much Lien is striving, to acknowledge how much she is attempting to ground herself.

"It's not just dependent on me," Lien informs the waist high grass, and the brambles to her right.

No, it's dependent on a group. A mass of people, big enough to bring the probability of the situation away from 10^(-30), and closer to one. But she can't even convince _one_ person when she's actually trying. How is she going to convince the amount needed?

True, Theresa believes, and she's beginning explore the possibilities. Franky believed from the second journey onward, and Ino knows as well. There's many people who believe in the multiverse theory in her world, and that has to count to some extent, though it may not extend to this particular experience. But that's only one dream world. The other dream world doesn't think about the subject much at all.

She looks back to the splintered remains of the divine tree, remembering how _right_ it felt to be it. How snug it felt around her. She knows it for some reason, a familiarity that sits solidly in her mind.

Creating reality would somehow work out in that form, she thinks, without really understanding how or why.

...But it is broken. Its trunk is shattered, strewn across the landscape, and its branches are twisted and splintered. The foliage it had is falling from it, and though it fell just a short while ago, for some reason it seems emaciated.

Her toes wiggle in the bloody soil, and she contemplates the divine tree for a long time.

The conclusion she arrives on is the same she had before. She doesn't have an answer. Doesn't know if there is one.

"Aiyah," she sighs softly, glancing to the moon.

She supposes that asking the Norns is the next step, but to do so, she needs to gather them all in one place. Which will take some figuring out.

-Wait, was she even basing them off the Norns, or was she sticking to the Greek term, and calling them the Moirai? Hindu, with the Devi Shakti?

For the life of her, she can't remember. There's too many similarities, a startling number of common themes in myths and religions. She has difficulty sorting them, which probably explains her own Taoist and Buddhist beliefs.

Perhaps she should stick to science, but then which science? Physics is the most logical choice for discussing reality, but which doctrine? Galilean, Newtonian? Relativity? Then again, those seem to have been unified under the new Quantum, and generally most fields interact together harmoniously. It's just comprehending everything on that level is absurdly difficult.

Sorta like understanding how all these myths have such similar themes, and yet differ so greatly. There's probably a path to unification somewhere, but not only would that be blasphemous, it would be improbable to do with how societies treat them.

(And what about a merger of the two? Is that...is that philosophy? No, that can't be right. Maybe she's trying to put too many things together in one system. But all those things exist together in a system together in the dream/reality, so uniting them shouldn't be so difficult inside her head.)

She's probably making this harder than it needs to be. She may have even made it more complicated than it ever actually was.

"The others may know," she tries.

The celestial body remains silent, as if it is amused.

* * *

 **AN: Big shout out to Siartha on tumblr for helping me out with this chapter. If it looks cleaner, it's because they went over it.**


	16. Disconnect

I do not own Naruto.

* * *

Ino is about five minutes away from throwing a tantrum, the likes of which have not been seen since she was three years old.

The Hokage is _still_ interrogating her, and it's been going on for _so long_. She doesn't even know how long, because there are no clocks or windows, but it feels like an _eternity_.

All she knows is that her voice is actually starting to hurt from talking so much. Not just her throat, no, but her very voice. She doesn't even know how that's possible. A voice is just sound waves produced by vocal chords. How can it feel sore?

"Hokage-sama, I don't actually know how long they've been infiltrating our world," she says again. "Lien didn't-... Lien _doesn't_ understand time."

He gives her a baleful look, and she wishes she had a better answer for him, but she _doesn't_.

Time, as Ino knows it, is... well, it's the continual progression of events in succession, from past to present. It's causality, from past, to present, to future. It's measured in ticks of a clock, sunrises, sunsets, and seconds.

Time for Lien is staggeringly dictonimous. On one hand, Lien knew time to be whatever a clock tells her it is. On another, Lien thinks that time is an intellectual construct of sentient beings, not a fact of life. She thinks of it as a tool that people use to sequences events, and then compare them. To her, it is a useful social construct that she only partially keeps track of. She knows she spends an average of sixteen or so hours awake, and eight hours asleep, but while she is dreaming, she can live months at a time. So nine hours and several months simultaneously. Which means that time had no structure at all, and all events could be happening simultaneously, depending on perspective.

Which not only makes her age hard to pin-point -Twenty something? Centuries?-, but it also makes it hard to say how long she has been doing this. Yes, for the entirety of the memories she shared with Ino, but how long is that? And accounting for the others?

"She thinks it's made up," Ino extrapolates, and the Hokage sighs, deep and gusty. It has been a while since this started. At least somebody came by to verify her identity, and she got to see daddy for a bit, but until they make sure she can keep a secret she's going to be under watch.

She doesn't doubt for a second that there is more to it than that. They don't trust her, but this she understands. The Hokage might have hosted one of them, but he isn't a Yamanaka, nor was he a child at the time. There was a clear line between the people in that body, one he maintained. He didn't try to merge with the mind, didn't crash into it on a metaphysical plane like Ino. His mind is set, unmalleable, _not Yamanaka_ , and he kept his identity.

Ino didn't. Ino knows she's changed.

But it's….it's not the worst thing, being a new person, or being watched. At least she's out of the chains now. Her wrists are a bit raw, and her chakra still feels a bit hard to reach, but she can fidget again.

Hokage-sama goes to open his mouth, most likely to ask her yet another question, but his rumbling voice fails to make it past his lips. The air around them seems to shiver, and something draws his eyesight away from her. She doesn't know what it is at first, but after a few moments, she realizes that there is a noise she can hear. Soft at first, like the fluttering of a moth's wings, but growing louder. Two voices, both feminine, and both arguing heatedly.

"-The ethical and moral implications of your actions are staggering, Theresa, and I am absolutely-"

"-Like you give a shit about that, Franky. You are just as confused as I am-"

Ino watches the old man snap his mouth closed and stare, his eyes widening in shock as two women fade into existence from absolutely nothing, in between then. Like smoke, the individual motes of dust in the air, infinitely small and vast in number, gather together and consolidate into shapes. It forms torsos, then legs, then arms and hands. Rough approximations of heads gain intricate features, and color spreads like paint in water over their frame. Two women materialize from the ether, so caught up in their verbal altercation that they don't seem to notice their surroundings.

"-She _consented_ , it wasn't forced-"

"-She isn't in the right mind to give consent, you took advantage-"

"-By that logic, she's never in the right mind to consent. She's an adult-"

As if the situation wasn't jarring and outlandish enough, a third figure oozes out of the ceiling like she is being born from it, seeping through cement like water. Gravity grabs hold and she slips free, falling right on to the bickering duo, who yelp in pain and surprise as all of them crash down. There is the sound of flailing limbs, startled voices, and then a sharp crack as one of them slams the back of their head against the cement floor and goes limp.

Ino is certain she knows every one of them, and she flicks her gaze to the Sandaime, who stares at the heap, shock fading into recognition, and then melting into defensive wariness. He looks back to her for a second, and she wishes she could escape that gaze. He's been exasperated and mistrusting before now, but this isn't the same. This is the Sandaime that daddy speaks of, the legend, The God of Shinobi. She shivers at the sudden intensity.

"Where-?" asks a weak voice, sounding exhausted and confused.

The Sandaime closes his eyes, and he no longer looks so frightening. He takes a deep breath before opening his lids and staring, unimpressed, at the trio on the ground.

"Franky?" slurs the same voice. "Theresa? Ino?"

Ino snaps her eyes over to the pile, where she gets her first good look at a being who has only ever manifested as a consciousness before now. Lien looks smaller than Ino thought she would, her face sallow and drawn. She isn't imposing or grand like her mind would imply, but seemingly frumpy and unremarkable.

A muscular, dark arm reaches up from beneath to shove her off, and Ino finds herself looking at what must be Franky, who turns to look around her with dazed hazel eyes. Her short, curly hair is frazzled from the fall, and her angular features melt into concerned confusion as she looks around. When she notices the Hokage looming over them, her lips twist into a grimace of surprise and fright.

The last figure is slumped against the ground, knocked out from the fall. Her auburn hair and warm, golden skin contrast almost violently with the bland grey of the concrete, and her plump body is lax with the stillness of unconsciousness.

All of them appear very out of place, dressed in well used night clothes in an interrogation cell. The disparity of it, combined with the vasts amount of stress, makes Ino want to laugh.

"Oh," Franky breathes, eyes glued to the old man in front of her.

The Hokage frowns, hard.

"I was inside you!" the woman blurts. She winces at her choice of words, as does the Hokage himself. There's a meaning underneath the words Ino only partially grasp, instinctively shying away from the subject.

"I mean, I didn't mean to-... we don't control..." Franky trails off slowly, glancing around her person for somebody who might be able to explain better. Her wandering gaze lands on the women around her, and her brow furrow at their appearance. She finally seems to register her sister's less than optimal state, and Lien's drawn countenance. She raises her hands over them both on instinct, and her palms flutter in the air for a few moments, before she visibly comes to the conclusion that she doesn't know what to do. She looks back up, most likely to ask for assistance-

-only to pause again when she sees Ino seated in her chair.

There's a lot going on, and not a whole lot of comprehension from anybody. An awkward silence stretches out between the parties, only interrupted by Lien's soft panting as she attempts to regain her breath from whatever wore her out.

Somebody clears their throat.

"I think," hedges the Anbu taking in the spectacle, "Maybe...there should be an explanation."

"Yeah," Franky returns, blinking owlishly at the child in front of her. "Yeah, that sounds about right."

* * *

Franky didn't sign up for this.

Sure, in theory it was good. Dreaming about another world, and vividly remembering it? Taking different shapes, like a dog, or bird, or fish? Awesome. Changing bodies completely, and literally living life in someone else's shoes for a little bit? That sounds sweet as fuck.

It was like her favorite book. There were superpowers, epic fights, sick adventures, and magic. There was a whole world that was some weird fantasy steampunk east asian historical fiction. It was all the glamour of a fantasy life, the allure of exploration and discovery.

Yes, much of it was nonsensical as well, but it was still fun. They got the big ass book of dream interpretation, so even when it didn't make sense, they could pretend that it had some other meaning. They could make a story when there wasn't one, or when the story was too strange to properly form a narrative.

Knowing what she does now, everything seem a little less fun. A little darker, a little more fucked up.

A lot, actually. A lot more fucked up. Like, old man dictator, little girl in strange cell, sister knocked out, assassins, and death kinda fucked up. Like, appearing in what is arguably a torture chamber in your pajamas, having to drag your unconscious sister over to you so she can have a pillow in the form of your legs, and facing an unknown kinda fucked up.

Nobody says anything while she ensures her Theresa's comfort, and she knows the burden of speaking is on her shoulders. Lien probably should, but she doesn't really seem up for the task at the moment. Franky has so many questions about that, but she guesses maybe she should give some to receive a few in return.

"My name is Franky, and all this started about a week ago for us," she starts hesitantly, combing her fingers through her sister's hair. Theresa has a lump on the back of her head the size of an egg, and somehow she's the luckiest of them despite her previous actions. Is the tea responsible for this? Was the dosage too high? If so, she should be awake to clean this mess up, but she isn't, which leaves Franky. Which, frankly -hah, frank Franky- is utter bullshit.

"A week," the old man repeats in an exasperated tone.

"For me and Theresa, yes. Lien has been doing this since forever, but only recently have we been pulled in as well," she clarifies irritably, because, _hello_ , she ain't happy about it either.

"So you would say that this Lien is responsible?"

Franky hesitates to answer, because she doesn't actually know. She looks to Lien, but her cousin doesn't look good at all. Her gaze is glassy, her complexion ashy, and her head is listing to one side.

"Like lightning is responsible for first world nations, maybe," she hedges, unsure.

The people in the room give her a blank look, and she wracks her head trying to find a better explanation. It could be the tea, it probably has at least something to do with Lien, but it also could be a hallucination. She really has no idea how idea how to put it into words, which makes it a relief when the tiny blond child clarifies for her.

"In their world, electricity has been harnessed to fuel huge amounts of change and shift lifestyles entirely. There were a lot of variable involved, lots of interconnecting pieces across a large span of time. What she's trying to say is that there are probably a lot of steps we're missing, and all we're seeing is the end result."

Which, sorta? But more worryingly is the way the kid interpreted all that from her words, and how she explained it. No brat should ever use words like that, or even comprehend such an abstract concept. There's something really weird about it.

"Convoluted metaphor," mumbles Lien, leaving them all to wonder. She makes no effort to clear things up on her own, forcing Franky to prompt her.

"Would you explain then?"

"It's a big convoluted metaphor, and it's not working well," Lien tries again. "Because no one is understanding."

Franky glares at her, and Lien sucks in a breath to puff out her cheeks. It's not cute, in fact, it makes her sunken eyes look even more lifeless. Her cousin looks like she hasn't slept in weeks, despite the fact Franky saw her in the other world less than fifteen minutes ago.

Franky narrows her eyes in suspicion.

Lien turns away from her then, shifting her body so that her legs are underneath her. In an action that would be more proper when greeting grandmothers and aunties, she tips her head down low and bows.

"Excuse me for my rudeness, my name is Lien, and I am trying to establish reality. Please forgive me for any inconvenience this causes you," she huffs out softly. She still sounds winded, and her voice is kinda hoarse as well.

Franky can literally feel the patience of everybody in the room shift a little closer to the breaking point as Lien sits back up. She herself is irked by the words, but it is tempered by her concern. For now, at least.

"I know this must be very confusing for everybody involved. I myself do not understand much, which is why I seek council from those gathered, specifically two believers from each dream," she finishes politely.

The room is almost oppressively silent at this point, all eyes on Lien. She fidgets under such intense scrutiny, but the action is somehow off. She can't put her finger on why it is, exactly, but the movement is strange, glitchy almost.

But then the words sink in, and her levels of concern shrink down to be replaced by disbelief.

"Two believers?" asks the old man, the same time Franky demands "Did you consciously bring us here this time?"

Lien blinks. The blond child in the interrogation chair stares at her, a strange expression on her face, and she speaks next, giving Lien no time to answer the previous queries.

"You're learning to control it?" the girl asks, sounding skeptical.

"It is a work in progress, but I must thank you for what progress has occurred so far," Lien replies, that infuriating half smile growing on her worn face.

"If you can control it, can you bring us all back now?" Frank asks with cautious hope. True, she does want to know how Lien learned control, but she's more focused on the results. The thought of having this nightmare end is wonderful, and she can almost taste the relief on her tongue. She won't have to try and explain something she can't understand, and they can all wake up and never do this again. She can get Lien the help she needs after this, hell, get them the help they all need.

"I can," Lien affirms. "But I won't."

There is silence as the words register, and Franky goes dangerously still.

"If you stop coming here, you'll forget it was real. You'll explain it away, Franky, and Theresa might do the same. You re my favorite cousins, and I love you very much, but humans can justify anything to themselves, explain anything away if they try. It will be easy to write it off as nothing more than some nightmares if you want to."

"Lien," Franky says after a moment, her voice going low as she tries to comprehend. How can she get explain this to her cousin? Surely she just doesn't understand. Surely this is done out of ignorance, and not the iron fisted need to control. "Lien, you can't… I don't consent to this. This upsets me very much. I'm sure it upsets the people here as well. If you do this on purpose, you are interrupting people's lives."

Lien makes a face as if she is apologetic, but it seems almost superficial to Franky. It's as if her cousin is sorry because it's inconvenient, not because she understands the ramifications of her actions.

"Girl, your friend is right. If you do this on purpose, you are causing great harm. You are a danger, and will be treated as such," the old man adds on threateningly.

"It's only until I can establish reality. It will be alright then. Most people from our world already believe in the multiverse theory, so I only need to bring some evidence to show them and solidify this world's existence, but people here need some convincing for our world to be real," Lien attempts to assuage. "That's why I brought us all here, so I could get some advice on how to convince a large percentage of the population peacefully."

Franky is aghast. This isn't the Lien she knows, the one who accepts life as it comes and is content to learn and live. This isn't the passive woman she has grown up beside, with deep understanding and acceptance of different beliefs and systems. This is something else.

" _Convince_ \- You cannot spread your doctrine here. Go back to your world, and never come here again. Burden us no further, or face the consequences," the old man states coldly.

"I tried that," Lien rebuttals without heat. "I tried just staying there, but I keep coming back, probably because everything is unstable and is warping around. That's why I need people to believe."

' _That is such bullshit_ ,' Franky thinks angrily. The universe doesn't just warp, and it's not unstable. It's not a dream, or a game, and Lien doesn't need to convince anyone of anything. She's being obtuse on purpose. People's belief doesn't change science. It's there regardless of belief.

"You did it, didn't you?" the little girl asks, interrupting the conversation suddenly, and halting Franky's thoughts. "Wherever and whenever you learn control. You either have already gone back to make sure your cousins start traveling with you in the dreams, or you plan on going back and dragging them here to start all this."

Lien seems so peaceful when she nods her head, so contained. Franky hates it with every fiber of her person.

"Did or will do, even I'm not sure, Ino. It gets very confusing," she confides calmly. "What matters is that they are here, and that they believe."

"But you said your focus was on making our world believe, so they shouldn't have to stay-... You're leaving them here," the newly dubbed Ino states, causing Franky's heart to fill with fear. "You want them to be unable to deny this place is real, and us unable to deny that you are real, so you're going to leave them here to remind all of us."

"Just until I convince enough people," Lien agrees apologetically. She says it with such infuriating calmness that Franky sees red. This isn't her life. She doesn't get to decide that. The fury inside her is overwhelming, dancing with terror and fright. It no longer matters that Lien looks run down and ragged, it only matters that she be shown the error of her ways.

Franky carefully shifts Theresa's head off her lap, and lunges at Lien. Her fist smacks across her cousin's face hard enough to make her knuckles sting, snapping the smaller womans head back and causing her to fall.

Lien doesn't make a sound, but her hand raises to her cheek as if she is checking that it is real. Her dark eyes slide to Franky, and there is a moment that stretches forever between them.

"I know you are under stress, but that's no reason to act psycho. You don't get to decide our lives for us. Bring us back," Franky demands, her teeth gritted together. She's draped over the other girl, having put the entirety of her upper body behind that throw.

Lien's peaceful smile slips, wavers, and falls. She drags herself out of Franky's grasp, slapping her hands away when Franky tries to grab hold and yank her back down, and she pulls herself to her feet. Her hand is cupped to her face, her eyes growing wet as she regards them all.

"I thought about this for a really, really long time," Lien whispers. "I can't tell you how long I was stuck in that place, with nothing but a broken tree and the moon, trying to get us all together, trying to figure out how to control it instead of it controlling me-"

"You were _there_?" interjects the masked man. "It's been months here, how long was it there? Did it...has it only been minutes in your world?"

"It doesn't matter," she answers, but suddenly her weariness makes sense to Franky. Her ragged appearance and absolute exhaustion have a cause, but that means very little in the face of Franky's anger.

"It won't matter how long we spend here either, because only a night will have passed at home," Lien continues, raising her hand to cradle her reddened cheek. She casts her eyes up to Franky, almost pleadingly. "It's just a night Franky. Please understand."

"It _matters_. I am so unbelievably pissed that you would even _think_ this would be okay," Franky bites out, scrabbling to her feet as well. She's going to shake some sense into Lien if that's what it takes, and then they can all go home and cry together.

"No, don't-!" warns the little girl.

Franky advances anyway, intent. She knows that Lien walks away when things get serious, but the cell is closed off. She has nowhere to run now. She has to face this.

Only, apparently, Franky is wrong as hell, because everything starts to go to shit all at once.

It's like suddenly being forced to look through a kaleidoscope. There's one image that splits symmetrically into nine, all mirrors of one another, upsidedown and sideways, flipped back around. The old guy behind her makes a choking sound, and the room floods with some terrible sort of energy as the ground tilts beneath her feet, rotating on an axis nobody can see. Her bare feet slip on the smooth concrete, and she feels like puking as she tries to look through nine eyes at once.

"Lien!" Franky shouts, trying to focus on her cousin, but Lien's quickly bruising face is getting smaller and smaller as she backs away.

"Lien!" calls another, more masculine voice to about equal effect.

A yellow blur streaks past, and the sound of tiny feet pounding against the ground fills Franky's ears. The little girl, she registers, is sprinting her tiny heart out toward her cousin. Her arms raise up, and her petite fingers spread wide like she's trying to catch Lien with her bare hands.

Something even quicker chases after her, snatching her back away from the heart of the anomaly. The little girl cries out as the red blur bounds away from the irregularity, clutching tightly to the child who still reaches out for Lien.

Lien, who looks back with a blank face, cheek cupped in her hand. Lien, who is at the heart of all this, who started everything, who Franky wants to shake until she stops.

Lien who, after Franky blinks, is just gone.

* * *

 **AN: I've rewritten this chapter three times, edited constantly, and I'm still not super pleased with it. Honestly, it's incredibly frustrating and I want to move past it. This was supposed to be a FUN fic, not this fucking mess. Also, it is unbeta'd and only kinda edited, soo sorry about the formatting mess. If you see mistakes, please let me know. I will compile them and go back in an effort to fix them**

 **Edit: Thanks Siartha, for pointing out the numerous errors in the chapter. Bless you.**


	17. Insight

I do not own Naruto.

* * *

The sisters, in light of their (or rather, Franky's) obvious, and immediate, protest of Lien's actions, and their (again, Franky's) prompt condemnation of their cousin, are gifted with a cell of their own instead of immediate death.

They do not see this as the mercy it is.

Precious few held within the depths of T&I are ever graced with the presence of a medical nin for the sole purpose of ensuring prolonged health, but that is immediately what happens after the disappearance of Lien, and subsequent alteration of reality. In fact, the Hokage ensures everyone who was in that room receives a full battery of tests.

Franky is in some sort of shock like state immediately after it all, so it is easy to have the masked, bland iryo nin run her through the diagnostics. Theresa remains unconscious for the duration of it, which makes the whole thing simpler as well. There is no doubt that they would have become combative if they were in their right minds, but the events leading to this moment have left them unprepared to fight back in this moment.

Still, Tenzo thinks it is a bit strange. The depth of the examinations aren't shallow, and are even downright invasive at times. Samples are taken, several diagnostics are run, and it seems like they are evaluating the very chemical makeup of the forced visitors.

The reason becomes clear once the results come in a week later. The three natives are in proper form, and cleared for duty.

The two foreigners are what can be considered near dead by this world's standards, and their charts reveal incredible differences at an anatomic level.

According to the reports, their bodies are riddled with drugs and toxins, foreign substances that have no name in this world, but must be common in theirs if the amounts in their system are to be believed. Thier liver, lymphatic systems, and thyroids function at accelerated rates to combat the influx of these compounds, and their respiratory and cardiac systems work nearly double time to keep up.

The chart actually goes beyond his understanding of medicine and anatomy as it continues on, citing peculiarities in the Insular Cortex and Anterior Cingulate Cortex, which he concludes from context are section of their brains. He has little to no idea what it means, other than that Yamanaka are peculiarly ill suited for infiltrating their minds to find information, and they have entirely shifted perceptions compared to native inhabitants.

Which is...well. Inoichi seems upset by this fact, though he also it finds it explains many things.

"It means their sense of identities are malleable, developed different from ours," the interrogator states darkly, his hand fisted around the manilla folders. "It means that they can infect us if we try to go in."

"Infect?"

Inoichi wipes his face of emotion, but there is mourning in his eyes as he looks down the corridor to where he knows his daughter's cell is. He is instructing her every day now, pulling her from the anger and grief she seems to be experiencing, getting her to focus on the training she needs to get out, instead of what she presumes is a loss. It's only been a week, but when he is posted at her cell, he can already see the changes. The little girl can already turn a conversation whatever direction she wants it, and is a natural born manipulator. It's unsurprising, considering the Clan she was born into.

There are moments, however, when she her expression warps, and her whole body stills. She will sit in the tiny bed they provided her with, staring at the corner her supposed friend melted into, and he can never tell is she looks terrified or concerned.

"There are a few minds that we cannot take," Inoichi says simply. "Simply because those minds take back."

Unsettled, Tenzo doesn't comment further. What he does end up doing, however, is confessing his trip to the other world to the Hokage, both of them. To be honest, he still can't convince himself it was real, but he knows that it cannot be fake, so it hangs in some strange paradox in his mind. Both real and fake at the same time.

Which makes explaining it with any sort of clarity very, very hard.

The Hokage, at least, does him the honor of waiting till the end of the report to comment.

"I can see why you might believe this to be the product of outside influence on the psyche, rather than an actual experience," he allows after a very long pause. Sometime during the explanation of the foreigners as wolves, death without dying, and ineffable Dao, he had brought out his pipe. The smoke is uniquely sweet and cloying, drifting lazily up and dispersing through the room, and strangely enough it calms Tenzo. It's a grounding smell, one that he has taken in many times in his life as he has delivered various mission reports, and guarded the Hokage himself. It reminds him of where he is, gives him something real to grasp.

"I would have reported it immediately had I known, sir," Tenzo answers stonily. He expected punishment, honestly. This apparently was highly pertinent information, rather than a lucid dream, and he should have delivered it straight away.

The Hokage nods his head, peering out the window of his office. The sprawling network of secrecy seals etched into the sills are a stark juxtaposition when compared to the sunlight outside, though Tenzo can't quite pinpoint what makes him say so.

"I can submit myself for a mind sweep if necessary for confirmation of loyalty," Tenzo offers, though he is reluctant to do so. It feels a bit violating when other nin invade his mindspace, even with consent. Like a wet finger in his ear, or fluid in his sinuses, but magnified a thousand times, and all psychological.

(He won't admit that Lien doing it had been different.)

"You are a good agent, and impeccably loyal. The fact that you will submit yourself for review is pleasing, and when Inoichi has time, it may be done. However, I understand your plight. Never before have we come across something that can obscure the lines of dreams and reality so much, " the Hokage allows, taking a drag on his pipe. He stares out over the village for a long time before releasing another cloud of smoke.

"Sir...if I may be candid?" Tenzo trails carefully. He may have avoided punishment for not reporting, but this is another matter entirely. He should take his wins and move on.

The Hokage spares him an inquisitive glance. Years of Root training are hard to beat, and rarely does Tenzo take the initiative to speak more than he feels is necessary. He's not quiet, or submissive per say, but rather self contained. He knows this, as does the Professor, which probably makes him more amiable to the idea of a subordinate submitting an unasked for viewpoint.

The elderly leader nods just once, and Tenzo chooses his words carefully.

"It is clear to me that we are dealing with an entirely different culture and system then what we know. Their civilian mannerisms -which would indicate certain deficiencies here- seem to have an entirely different meaning in their world."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that I believe that they seem incredibly educated. The amount of printed literature present in their house, their ability to articulate, and the advanced technology indicate that their culture may place a higher emphasis on academic pursuits. Whether it is because the supposed time their society has had to evolve, or simple core value differences, I cannot say. What I can deduct is though that they may not seem adapted to our idea of advanced combat, or societal patterns-"

"-they have, more likely, developed entirely separate ways of dealing with things, and divergent field of expertise. This is a logical deduction. I am not ignorant to this fact, however, I have yet to discover a way to collect intelligence, as the Yamanaka cannot interrogate them, and it is difficult to know the exact physical limits we can use to extract information, or if such stimulus will even be effective," The Hokage completes, gesturing with his weathered hands. "Yet Danzo and I are troubled by the abilities that one of them put on full display, flouting security with such a petty, mad demeanor."

Thus they come to the crux of the matter. They cannot gather more information, cannot resolve the matter with what little they have, and they have no idea where to even begin. They want to stop Lien from doing whatever it is she is doing, and they want to ensure the safety and security of their Village. All that cannot be done as things stand.

"The young Yamanaka Ino is very loyal to her home, however, she has expressed sympathies to the perpetrator, and is compromised by her influence, and any knowledge she has seems to be muddled. She confirms things, but doesn't tend to volunteer extra details. Whether this is because she swayed, simply deems it difficult to pinpoint them, or finds them extraneous, we do not know," Tenzo adds on carefully.

The Hokage nods to this as well, folding his hands together once more, and taking a puff of his pipe.

"The two prisoners express condemnation for the actions of the third, and a genuine desire to return home," he continues cautiously. "They have been largely compliant, most likely out of fear, but a large portion of their resentment is directed at the third member."

"Tenzo," his leader scolds, urging them to the point.

"Cross reference information between the prisoners and Ino. We may not trust them individually, but we can believe in the girl's loyalty to her village and family, as we can trust in the prisoners anger, and their wish to return home," Tenzo states finally.

The Hokage purses his lips.

"We have no way of properly interrogating the prisoners without physical damage, and we aren't sure how much we can heal, so we don't know what the limits ar-" he begins, but then he pauses, his eyes narrowing as he goes over the introduction to this conversation. Tenzo can see his mind working as incredible speeds as he extrapolates behavior based on a society based on academics and knowledge to such a large extent, and one where a multitude of information outlets would be available to the civilian populace, instead of hoarded by governing factions.

(Or, if Tenzo suspects correctly, one where there was so much information and so many people, it couldn't be hoarded efficiently.)

Suddenly the Hokage laughs, a sound Tenzo hasn't heard since this all began. He doesn't look younger when he does, his face still weathered and wrinkled, but he does appear healthier. Less taxed by the ongoing events.

It doesn't go on for very long before he is forced to stop because his pipe slips out of between his lips. It's a simple for a ninja of his caliber to catch the tumbling object before it touches the ground, but the event signals the end of his mirth. However, his pleased joy still lingers.

"I think you have a point, Cat-san," The Hokage tells him. "We haven't tried asking."

Tenzo bows his head in acceptance of this statement. It seems to him, that if he was reared in a place where information was so vastly shared and spread, he would be instinctively trained to attempt to understand and find answers, see different viewpoints, and work toward common goals. Lien certainly seemed to be doing those things when she told him her theories, and when she gathered a council for advisement on her actions.

The Hokage's face turns ponderous as the silence between them stretches on.

"I suppose this mean Hatake has been contacted as well," he states after a long moment.

Tenzo...Tenzo hadn't really thought of that, actually. They never spoke of it. Rather, Tenzo didn't bring it up, and neither did Senpai.

The Hokage seems to read this from his stillness, and he smiles slyly.

"I suppose we should check, now shouldn't we?"

* * *

Theresa is the one awake and on watch when a familiar figure casually strolls into the cell like they own the place. Which, she supposes they actually do.

The sisters set up a shift system as soon as Theresa woke up, mildly concussed and confused to all hell about the cement room, prison furnishings, and bandages on her arm. A shitty palette was digging into her back, and her head was cushioned on warm skin, Franky's usually jovial expression twisted with stress and shock as she watched her sister sleep.

Honestly, for a moment she thought they were ten again, whispering secrets to each other in the shared room they once had.

But it was not so. Franky's face was to angular, not rounded with youth, her brows drawn and lips raw from where she chewed them. She looked like she had seen something that had taken years off her life.

That latter guess was not far from the truth, apparently.

After a long, long time, Franky began to fill Theresa in, her words hushed and stilted. She spoke of the meeting that took place, a child in a chair in some torture dungeon, the man whose body she had taken over a few nights ago, and a familiar masked assassin. She broke it down into pieces, and Theresa could see her sister trying to compartmentalize as she went on. Trying to drain it down to bare facts and words spoken, her sentences sterile enough to be used in a courthouse, or a lab report.

Worse yet, she spoke of Lien. Of Lien's choice.

At first, Theresa had been livid. She felt shocked, betrayed, because Lien could bring them home, but she just left them to rot. She deserved to be struck, and when Theresa saw her again she was going to chew Lien out _so hard_.

But it as time went on, and the sisters spoke is their quiet tones, unable to tell time in any fashion, they began to wonder if being trapped in dungeons, like brutally dying, had become normalized for their cousin. If her unraveling mental state was exacerbated by the tea, if there had been a single breaking point they could isolate or identify at all.

Because this Lien? This was not the one they knew.

They were frightened. Terrified, actually, but they were also angry and confused. They knew exactly jack shit about this country, other than it was apparently inhabited by magic wielding assassins, was behind their times in terms of weaponry, and was totally cool with leaving prisoners to rot.

...Alright, they were served meals through the slot in the door, and there were some basic facilities, but still. There was no trial, no formal sentencing, not even a hint of some sort of judicial system.

They couldn't agree if the system was autocratic, or something styled similar to a South American Junta. They had no idea what the basis for the cultural system was, though judging by all the men folk, it seemed outwardly patriarchal in appearance. Then again, they hadn't seen the society itself, and their experiences were too small to accurately say anything at all, really. Which made deductions harder still, and all they could agree on was being stupidly cautious with anyone who eventually came. If they would imprison a little girl, then two adults could be in for some real pain.

The only reason they held on, that they pulled through, is because they had each other. Thankfully, blessedly, they were _together_ in this ass backwards shithole their cousin had condemned them to.

Oh, time had brought understanding to some extent, and there was concern, definitely, but they were still _furious_ to be left rotting in this cage alone.

Well, alone until now.

The wizard assassin entering the cell is familiar, wearing the same feline mask that he has been adorned with since they met him. His gait is still eerily silent, his body still covered in armor and outdated weapons. It should not be relieving to see him, but Theresa is glad that they did not send in a stranger.

Then again, he is still mostly a stranger. There have never been any proper introductions, and she doesn't even know his name.

She shakes doesn't take her eyes off off him as she moves to shake her sister awake, and he does them the courtesy of allowing Franky to get her grounding before anything starts. It's not much, considering, but she does note the action. They are not the ones in control, but the illusion of courtesy is nice.

With both sisters up, and silence filling the cell, the atmosphere becomes a bit strained. It's just them, staring at each other from across the room awkwardly. Theresa is content to let it happen, because though she is angry, she's also not stupid enough to push what appears to be their warden. She gets the feeling that a lack of trial is just the tip of the iceberg in this world.

" _I cooked you breakfast_ ," Franky states in a betrayed voice, breaking the silence.

Theresa closes her eyes. She had _thought_ Franky was on the same page as her. Obviously, she was wrong.

The masked figure has the good grace to shuffle his feet, as if caught in some small social faux paus instead anything morally wrong.

"I understand that procedure here may be… odd to you," the figure states apologetically. "But I can say that so far, as unknown intruders to the village found within a restricted area, your treatment has been very lenient."

"What? You gonna tie me up in a big torture chair like you did with that tiny little girl?" Frank asks, and Theresa elbows her sister in the side in an effort to shut her up. She had thought the agreed to keep their shit on lock down, not egg on their jailers.

"That little girl is the heiress to a large clan, and she is in here because Lien dropped an unknown amount of information directly into her psyche, after merging with her for a short period of time," the man informs them placidly, his voice flat.

Franky opens her mouth to protest again, but the man holds up his hand to halt her.

"No physical damage has been done to her. She was previously restrained because Lien manifested a dangerous energy around her, and we had no idea what she intended to do with it. Since that time, she has been recuperating with the help of her father, not that it is any business of yours," he concludes. "I informed you simply because I believe you misinterpreted the situation, and gathered a false viewpoint on how the village handles children."

Franky closes her mouth.

"Clan?" Theresa hedges carefully, seeing an opening. "Does this world….does this _village_ respect clan structure?"

The man seems to consider this notion for a moment before nodding his head ever so slightly.

"Does your vil-...world?"

Theresa twists her features into an unsure face, one that Franky mirrors with a shrug.

"A lot of countries do, but I'm not sure what the exact structure is out of all one hundred and ninety six of them," she allows. "But our family has something like the old clan structure."

The man is suspiciously quiet for a long moment.

"I'm sorry, did you say one hundred and ninety six countries?" he asks in a noticeably duller voice.

Theresa nods, because yes, she did. She's pretty sure she's right about that as well. However, judging by his reaction, they probably think that's weird.

"Do you… do you know how many people are in each?" he asks.

"In each? No way. However, it's pretty common knowledge that there's around seven point four billion in total or so," Franky answers before Theresa can stop her.

That really seems to shake the man, because he goes stone still. For another short while, he does nothing at all, but he eventually moves again, smoothly gliding forward towards the two women.

"I think I'm not hearing you right," he admits, a little breathless as he approaches. "How many of you?"

"Seven billion plus," Franky repeats, delighted by the show. Even Theresa is taking a bit of vindictive pleasure out of shocking him, she must admit.

"That can't be right," he says a little helplessly.

"As far as we know, it's fairly accurate. Our world has a bit of a population problem, but if it helps, our clan is only in around nine of those countries, and only numbers in the triple digits or so," Theresa says, attempting sound apologetic. She's playing it up though, because if he thinks their population is astronomic, they probably have a much smaller one, and a clan in the hundreds would be a considerable force. More than enough to broker better treatment.

(She doesn't even think she's lying, either. She'd have to check the books, but she's pretty sure if she includes both her father's and mother's extended families, it's up there.)

However, her acting must not be up to his standards, because he turns to look at her. She notices his eyes beneath the mask, disbelieving and unamused. It's a strangely human trait that makes the whole situation a little less threatening.

...Probably human. She'd like to do some testing to confirm it, actually.

"Why does it even matter?" Franky chimes in, a little less gleeful now that he's closer. "Unless you're planning to make a solid connection with our world, the statistics won't help you."

Here he seem to gather himself up again, probably reminding himself of his purpose.

"It has been concluded that we do not have enough information to deal with the current situation," he informs them, somehow heaving some sort of wizard assassin professionalism out of his ass.

"And yet we are locked in a cement cell, meaning you have enough information to continue to restrain us," Franky rebukes in return. "In return for the considerable hospitality we displayed."

He doesn't answer.

Theresa taps her finger against her palms, considering what it is she can get out of this situation. What she wants is to go home, but until Lien returns, she doesn't think that's possible. Logically speaking, they are at a disadvantage, and the governmental system in place seems to be totalitarian in nature, meaning they can do anything they want without consequence, or damn near that. She isn't deluded enough to think that Franky and her can just walk free, or even escape if they try. For now they are bound, and until they learn more about the structure binding them, they are limited in actions.

"I think that the dilemma you face is mutual," Theresa allows. "You need to learn more about us to know any strengths we might have, the threat we may pose, and ultimately mitigate any damage we might do, or utilize us properly as assets. We need to know more about you so we can try and understand the same, but more so we can go home."

The masked man nods carefully, as if to let her know he's following her logic.

"I also understand that you have protocols to follow, even though they are affronting and barbaric to me. In light of this understanding, I would like to volunteer any assistance I can give, and considering I have fourteen years of various schooling under my belt, this is no small offer."

The man jolts a little in surprise at the number of years she has spent in academia, but he otherwise still doesn't speak.

"This is, of course, contingent on a few things," Franky chimes in, seeing where her sister is taking this. "We will be honest and upfront with our assistance as long as we remain together, without physical coercion. We will attempt to deliver a satisfactory service, and will cover a broad range of topics, but we do not know everything about our world, let alone yours, so accuracy will be variable."

"And we won't fight, or otherwise attempt any sabotage, espionage, or subterfuge during our stay," Theresa finishes.

The man seems to consider them for a moment, and Theresa stares defiantly back. This moment has weight. Meaning. This is the first civil attempt at diplomacy between interdimensional beings, in order to collaborate together for a common cause. This shit should go down in history books like the moon landing.

"I will take this offer to those with the power to accept it," The man returns solemnly, giving his rank away. Not a leader of the people then, but neither is Theresa, or Franky for that matter.

"Before you do, can we get a name? Or is that rude here?" Franky interjects.

The masked man hesitates.

"Come on, you know ours. I can't keep calling you 'that one guy' in my head," she weedles.

"If I receive permission, I will tell you," he says after a moment.

They get their answer eventually.

Tenzo. The Heavenly Creation.

* * *

 **AN:So, thanks again to Siartha on tumblr, for cleaning up the mess that my grammar can be, and also making sure the bio stuff was at least sorta passable. I also wanna say thank you to those who have consistently shown interest/support. #bless**


	18. On the Topic of Dejection and Bias

I do not own Naruto. Or The Dao de Jing.

* * *

The Dao de Jing, otherwise known as the Tao Te Ching, is an old writing. Old in the way that not much cannot hope to rival, ancient in a manner that is almost mythic in nature. Of course, this could be said for the Chinese empire itself, as it has stood long before many civilizations, just as it has stood long after many as well.

In comparison to other great works, the Dao de Jing is tiny, a mere five thousand characters, only eighty one passages long. It is miniscule when put next to the creations of the Greek philosophers, those greats who shaped the world known today. Even the Egyptian manuscripts are titanous in comparison, not only because hieroglyphs used, but the length of them as well.

It is a book of philosophy shaped like poetry, careful rhyming scheme and formatting used to impart lessons and thoughts in an artful way. The author is a figure known as Laozi, sometimes Lao-tzu, whose name directly translates to 'Old Master', one of the Three Pure Ones. His true name, alongside his true birth date, is contended by historians, as many things often are.

The contents of the work are nebulous, and the meaning is muddled even further by the various translations given. Even in its pure, untranslated state, its words are confusing, and often times frustrating to understand. It tries to capture in words something it fully admits cannot be understood completely. Which, of course, is the Dao itself.

Among the eighty one passages though, there is one that comes to mind as Lien fades out of the cell, cradling the cheek her cousin struck. It's a bit different than the rest of the verses, written on a more personal note. It is, to her, a confession by Laozi. An admission of humanity.

" _What's the difference between yes and no? What's the difference between beautiful and ugly? Must one dread what others dread? Oh barbarity! Will it never end?_ " He begins. " _How wide and without end is the range of questions asking to be discussed! The multitude of men look satisfied and pleased; as if enjoying a full banquet, as if mounted on a tower in spring. I alone seem listless and still, my desires having as yet given no indication of their presence. I am like an infant which has not yet smiled. I look dejected and forlorn, as if I had no home to go to. The multitude of men all have enough and to spare. I alone seem to have lost everything. My mind is that of a stupid man; I am in a state of chaos. Ordinary men look bright and intelligent, while I alone seem to be benighted. They look full of discrimination, while I alone am dull and confused. I seem to be carried about as on the sea, drifting as if I had nowhere to rest. All men have their spheres of action, while I alone seem dull and incapable, like a rude borderer. Thus, I alone am different from other men, but I value the nursing-mother, the Dao._ "

Lien knows what it sounds like, knows that it comes across as middle school angst at best. It's something everyone thinks at some point, something they lament. A mantra of woe, the special snowflake syndrome, and there's nothing special about it at all. In fact, it may be proof that they are more like everybody else than they presume.

Yet in this moment, though it may be arrogant, she empathizes with Laozi.

She _feels_ stupid. She feels like a dull, chaotic mess of thoughts and feelings, all of them too transient and liquid to mold into something she can say. As the people fade out of sight and she shifts out of the physical, she isn't sure she want to do anything but run, to get away from the loud shouts and threatening movements.

'Why?' She asks herself, simultaneously hollowed out and bursting with questions. 'Why am I like this? Why can't I understand? What did I miss? What did I do to upset everyone so much? Why can't I master this art of _just being_?'

She's so tired, worn out. It took so much effort to get here, to figure out how to ride the right current and feel the strings tying her to everyone in the room. It was so hard, and she messed up so many times before she got it right, working without rest so she could get council from everyone on how she should go about convincing people, so she could sheperd them to the same enlightenment she is so close to grasping.

Now she doubts that enlightenment existed at all. She was, and continues to be, _stupid_. Her heart is sure that she is dimwitted and slow. Her mind truly is that of a stupid man, and she is listless as she falls.

Hunger gnaws in her gut, and a curious hollow eats at her as she lets herself tumble back into the the split between worlds. The matter of her body shatters and converts into energy, and she becomes both a thing carried on the currents, and the force itself.

Though she feels stupid and chaotic, she somehow feels serene in a way that is almost apathetic, but even less than that. There are thoughts buzzing around her, but they refuse to be understood even by herself, and and a part of her unravels with the simple conviction that if she simply cannot master just being, perhaps she _should not be_.

The pieces of energy she knows as herself, all the memories, that elusive concept of soul, gradually disperse. She forces them apart, like painlessly prying limbs off, and she begins to merge with everything else, dissolving in the currents. Her awareness, dull and incapable as it is, muddles further until it is gone completely.

In a state of numbness, in the nexus of all times and places, Lien almost stops existing.

However, something incomprehensible to her rebukes this unbecoming. Perhaps it is the Dao itself, or perhaps it is the other parts of her who know that unbecoming is a bit of an overreaction to the events that just occurred. Whatever it is gathers her with all the grace of a fondly exasperated parent, drawing those dissolved parts back together. When her mind comes to awareness, she gets the fleeting impression of a scolding, before the force carrying her jostles her around and sweeps her across time before pushing her into the physical world once more.

She oozes outwards, her face and torso pulling free of whatever holds her, her arms and legs still trapped behind. Gravity exerts itself as she sprouts, and she's so tired that the weight of her own body seems far too much for her to carry. It only makes sense that she goes limp, sagging downward.

The smells of sawdust fills her nose, and warm sunlight caresses her cheek. She is not the most comfortable she has ever been, but she cannot bring herself to move.

There's a disturbance though. A quiet hitching of breath, and a terrified squeak.

Forlorn, but accepting, Lien opens her eyes-

-and stares right into a pair of bark colored orbs widened in shock.

There is a pause. It stretches on for a long, long while as the two stare at each other. Long enough for Lien to register a rectangular face with warm, honey skin, and long brown hair. It's a male in front of her, older than her by few year, probably no more. There are laugh lines scored into his cheeks, a sign of a joyous demeanor.

"BrotherrRRRR," shouts the man, his voice raising in volume as he continues to stare. "TOBIRAMAAAAAAAAAA."

Lien does not think he is speaking to her. He might be, but even as befuddled as she is, she doubts it.

"What?" snaps another masculine voice from behind her, proving her guess to be correct. There is another here. Obviously, she is not his brother. Which makes her a bit confused on what she is now.

"I THINK I'M A DAD."

"What?" bites the voice again, followed by the sound of footsteps. Lien lethargically tries to peer around her, but can't look around much as constrained as she is. She's half melded into a wooden beam that emerges from the earth itself, and there are signs of construction all around them.

Another person comes into view. Their skin is the color of milk, which make the burning crimson of their burnt amber eyes all the more striking. There are no laugh lines etched into this one's expression, but there are crimson streaks painted along their cheeks and chin. The effect is rather striking, all that bland white splashed with jagged color.

The newcomer catches sight of her, stops, and whirls on the other one.

"What did you do this time?" He hisses through clenched teeth. "Did you trap someone in there? Get them out right now, or I swear-"

"No! Tobi, listen. I was just growing the support beams, and everything was fine, until this center one. I mean, it should hold the weight, but right as I was growing it, they grew out of the wood, and … and does that mean I created a person? Am I a father? It's not a baby, but _I made them_ -"

The darker skinned man freezes for a second, a cold sweat breaking out on his skin.

"What do I tell Mito?" he whispers in terror.

The pale one is looking at his brother, rage cooling into something like numb acceptance, as if this is not the strangest thing that has happened. His eyes dart back to Lien, then his brother, then her once more.

"Sorry," she tells him tiredly, still attempting to observe her manners. Her voice is a bit rough, but still higher than usual. "I apologize for forming here."

The first man seems to snap back to himself, and he stares at her in wonder.

"Their first words," the man breathes, tears gathering in his eyes. He seems suddenly proud, and Lien worries a bit for him. The mood swings he seems to be having cannot be enjoyable to experience.

"It's too polite to be yours, Hashirama," the pale man decides firmly with narrowed eyes, prompting protest from the other.

"I grew it!"

Lien blinks sluggishly at them, and her stomach, empty after all the time it has gone unfilled, rumbles. She can't remember when she last ate. She was in that in between place for a very long time, trying so hard to figure everything out. All for naught, it seems. She still has no answers, her cousins are upset, and she is worn down with nothing to show.

The one named Hashirama starts at the noise, looking flustered again.

"It's hungry. Of course it's hungry. Aren't all babies hungry when they are first born? But it's not a baby, and I certainly can't nurse. I mean," He pauses for a moment, and lifts his hands to palpate his chest as if to make sure that last statement is true. "Almost certain I can't."

" _Hashirama_ ," the other male groans.

"What? What am I supposed to be doing Tobi?" he asks a little desperately. "I just grew a person. I didn't mean to grow a person. What do I do with them?"

"Perhaps start by getting them out of the support beam?" His brother asks tonelessly. His hand raises, and his nimble fingers begin to rub circles on his temples.

"Oh," the first brother sighs, his eyes widening. He scrambles to where Lien is tiredly hanging, and gently place his hands on her shoulders. With a gentle tug, she slips out of the wooden beam completely, hollows left where her limbs once were. Her feet touch down on the ground, and for a moment she feels as if she can remain like this, but her legs tremble beneath her, and the man does not want to take that chance.

"Congratulations, brother," Tobirama drawls. "It seems to be a female."

"Sorry," Lien says, looking down at her body. It's smaller than usual, and combined with the fact that she has such a high voice now, she supposes that means she is a child once more. It makes sense, in a way. The less energy there is to convert, the less matter she has.

Or something. She's not sure there are any absolutes in this equation. She could just be making that up.

A tingle down her spine makes her look back up. The pale man is staring at her, burnt amber eyes searching. She can't say what he looks for, but the arms supporting her weight tighten a bit in response to that gaze. Not painfully so, just a slight increase of pressure.

Lien closes her eyes, her mind sluggishly crawling along. She supposes she is apologizing because this is an upsetting circumstance, and she is at the center of it. As usual, it seems.

"Did my brother really create you?" the man asks.

"I believe so, in away," Lien answers as best she can. "I didn't have a body in this time and place until he formed the wooden beam, and I suppose it was the easiest place for the energy to transform into matter at that moment, so my body came from the wood."

" _See_ ," stresses Hashirama. "She came from my wood."

Tobirama spares his brother a truly unimpressed look, and she feels Hashirama's blush more than she sees it. They remind her of Franky and Theresa in that moment, and the notion makes her stomach writhe inside of her.

"What does that make her then?" Tobirama continues after a moment, turning his measuring stare back to her. "Is she a clone? Human? The construct of a technique gone wrong? Your chakra taking shape?"

Lien doesn't answer that. Those questions are more shaking than either of the men can understand, and on top of everything else, it's overwhelming. Nobody answers for a drawn out second, and she closes her eyes.

She is so tired.

(Nearby, a figure that felt ripples echos shiver down the linked roots of the forest watches with keen interest.

The reincarnated brothers it can use. It's been dealing with them for long enough by now, but that other one shouldn't be here yet. It shouldn't be awake at all, separated into too many pieces.

But here it is, far from its true body, separated and confused. It's weak now, but they can make it strong again. They can nurture it back to power.

After all, it's what Mother would want.)

* * *

Although Franky wishes it were not so, she can't say she is immune to bouts of ethnocentrism.

Actually, saying anybody is immune to scaling and rating things based off the criteria of their own group would be, at best, a mistake. At worst, it would be a boldly denied bias ingrained so deep into the psyche, one might not even recognize it's existence.

It's actually the kind of issue Lien loves, not that her cousin (may she trip and fall wherever she may be [ _pleaseletherbeokay_ ]) loves issues. It's just that Lien is good at this philosophical, relativistic type thing. Franky would bet her eye teeth that Lien could -and would- serenely explain the issues of judging one society by another's criteria, using terms like 'cultural relativism' and 'social identity theory', despite the fact that as far as Franky can tell Lien is now ascribing to solipsism, and is only sure that her own mind exists.

It's just...everything is really different here, and Franky isn't really qualified to be doing this. She hasn't been in ye ole Academia for quite some time now, and she has exactly zero knowledge for communicating with alien civilizations past watching Star Trek. Not only that, but there were always more Voyager reruns on television than Next Generation, meaning she doesn't even have the diplomatic example of Picard to follow, but the steely character of Janeway, and that's not always helpful in scenarios like this.

"Is having fourteen years of education common?" Tenzo asks from his wooden chair. It's one of three, a complete set that he just _grew out of the fucking ground. With magic._

"In some places, yes," Theresa answers distractedly, running her fingers over the wooden seat of her chair. She keeps tapping her nails along it's length, baffled, and it Franky had to guess, she would be astounded by the grain on it, and the density of the wood. It's at least as heavy as teak.

'This man can grow hardwood on demand' is the obvious joke. But it's too obvious. There's a better pun out there for this. Probably something about what a great seat he makes. Yes, that's much better, but….but this is a diplomatic meeting, and Franky probably shouldn't.

She frowns, crossing her arms over her chest, and the familiar white haired edgelord in the corner of the room glances at her like he hates that she exists, and also knows what she's thinking.

 _Man_ , Edgelord has that eye communication thing down pat.

"Franky has eighteen years, and some degrees take even longer. Some take less of course, and I believe the most common length of mandatory education is twelve years, and that's for every social class. It's pretty widely practiced. After those first twelve years, education becomes more specialized towards field of interest and cater towards certain careers. There's more than one type of school as well, and quality can vary a lot," Theresa finishes, leaning back up to face Tenzo, and casting her eyes towards the silver haired man curiously.

"Is matter manipulation taught here at school? Can everyone grow trees?" she asks curiously.

Franky shoots her sister a glance, not angry, just cautious.

"You're assuming there's a formal education system in place," she reminds Theresa.

Theresa, of course, 'tsks' under her breath, scrunching her nose. The self admonishment is pretty clear to read on her face.

Tenzo, as he has with every question before, looks to the silver haired man in response, as if asking permission to tell, and like every other time, the silver haired man waits a moment before nodding.

It's fairly obvious to Franky that the answers are being censored by a source outside this cell, one that the silver haired man has contact with. The only question she has is why they are making it so obvious when she knows these guys can be sneaky as hell. Is it a power play, reminding them they are in the hands of somebody more powerful? Is it to remind them that Tenzo isn't the highest animal on food chain? Is it some roundabout way of attempting to be comforting, making it all obvious so the foreigners can see?

She has no fucking clue, but it all feels like one big test.

"In rural areas, education can be sparse, but in our village, there are multiple paths. Trade is usually master and apprentice, but there are some who will take on students and do classes, until a certain skill rank has been reached. Academics for the sole purpose of knowledge is usually left to those of ...ah…" here he fumbles, searching for a particular word.

"Nobles or the elder clans, which share blood with the nobles," the silver haired man interjects smoothly.

Franky thinks that Tenzo was probably going to say 'rich people with too much time', but it's a nice save on Edgelord's part. Wouldn't do to be insulting to the aliens, aliens who are apparently _fucking nerds_ in comparison to everyone.

"Wait," Theresa pauses, carefully choosing her next words. "So you...have you…?"

Franky rolls her eyes.

"Theresa is concerned about your formal education," she drawls. "Which shouldn't matter, because you guys seem to be keeping up just fine with most of these concepts."

Tenzo inclines his head to show understanding.

"Shinobi indeed go to school. There is an Academy, though training can begin before then in some clans, and even children from civilian families can join. It usually lasts for six to seven years, but even after graduation to missions, education is encouraged into specialization-"

Franky nods along, but then she pauses, her mind working through that statement. An Acedemy, formal education for shinobi, which is apparently their soldier class. All good, but-

"What's the average graduation age?" she queries with a faux nonchalance.

Tenzo kindly ignores her rude interruption, but Theresa side eyes her in a way that says she may be thinking the same thing.

"Twelve to thirteen, though it is skill based," he says.

Franky visibly flinches back at his words, and Theresa actually reels like she's been struck.

Immediately, her gut and her brain tells her that this is wrong. That it should be condemned. That's...that's too young to join any class, let alone a soldier's path, and he says formal education, but education in what, exactly?

And it's skill based, meaning they can be even younger. In their world, child soldiers were historically ineffective because of their physical and cognitive limitations. With the advent of the great equalizer, aka guns, they became more effective, but it's also barbaric and reprehensible. They exist in the modern world, yes, but everyone, or damn near everyone, agrees they really, really shouldn't.

Maybe magic is the great equalizer here, and that makes them able to stand toe to toe with the adults on a battlefield, but that doesn't mean they _should_.

She goes to open her mouth, to drag this idea of their's into the goddamn dirt, but a warm hand wraps around her wrist, dexterous fingers grounding her. She turns, feeling a righteous fury burn in her heart, and Theresa stares back, her face solemn.

"Franky, listen to me. Remember when we took over the bodies of those old men? When we asked Lien what she usually did in the bodies she inhabited?" Theresa murmurs, her voice soft and hard all at once.

Stiffly, Franky nods.

"Lien might be right. ' _Let it go. This is not your world. Those are not your bodies, and these are not your choices. Imposing morality on the dream world is a misguided effort at best, and delusional effort at worse. The more you try to, the more this world will keep you here_ '," she echoes, quoting what their cousin had once said word for word.

"Children, Theresa. The implications-" Franky replies in the same small voice.

" _-_ Aren't ours to solve. It's wrong to us, horribly so, and if we see a chance to fix it, we can try. But they don't know us from a hole in a ground, we are in danger ourselves, and their values aren't ours _,_ " Theresa states adamantly.

Franky bites her lip and sucks in a sharp breath, a grimace scrawling across her features.

"The men in front of us, and that little girl probably..."

"I know, Franky. I know."

There is a long moment where the sisters just stare at each other, being grounded by one another's presence. It's a whacky upside down world, or maybe one that's just a little bit sideways. It's fucked up, serious fucked up, but it isn't theirs, and they aren't in a position to do a damn thing yet.

(Ethnocentrism, her brain reminds her. She's grading everything on a scale they don't use, and that's a bias.)

Tenzo awkwardly clears his throat, and Franky very deliberately leans back into her chair. It occurs to her that though their conversation was very brief, and spoken in hushed whispers, the two men could have heard everything the said. They didn't even think to speak in their native tongue either, which is alarming. This world is already slipping inside their heads, and that's terrifying.

Theresa squeezes her wrist just once before letting go. A reminder to stay grounded.

"There is a problem?" Tenzo asks, sounding a bit on guard.

"A difference of ideology which...startled us," Theresa answers cautiously.

Turns out, there's actually a lot of those.

* * *

 **AN:Big, BIG shoutout to Siartha on tumblr, who did a lot more cleaning than usual. Bless them, bless their face. I'm sorry for the delay on this chapter, but for the life of me I could not get anything that felt absolutely correct. I went through several revisions, going through Theresa ranting about Sophists and explaining cathode ray tubes to Tenzo being like ' _fuckin, what the fuck. Fuckity fuck_ ' to Kakashi just screaming it out in his head.**

 **And now we are here, with Dad Hashirama and Aware-of-my-bias-but-still-kinda-pissed Franky.**


	19. Various Forms of Assistance

I do not own Naruto.

* * *

There was an ambush waiting for them in Hashirama's house, and it took the form of one Uchiha Madara, much to Tobirama's chagrin. He should have expected it, he supposes. It's not like they were discreet with the child as they traveled the ramshackle skeleton of the soon to be village. Anyone could have spotted them.

"She could be an invader! A spy!"

"It's not like that, she's just a child, look at her-" Hashirama attempts to defend, shielding the small form behind him, and consequently, his brother as well. The whole ordeal is a bit ridiculous, actually. It always is when it involves his brother and that wild haired menace.

"We were children once, and look what we were capable of doing. You know as well as I do that age is no restriction when they are in service to a cause," Madara bites out coldly, coal eyes gleaming as he glares down both the newly minted Hokage, and the young girl who has begun rocking side to side.

"Madara, she grew from my chakra," Hashirama explains yet again. As an argument, it's fairly lackluster, but Hashirama has been defaulting to it for the entirety of her sudden appearance. Any suspicion cast her way is met with such ridiculous phrases as ' _She's only a few hours old_ ' and ' _She's mine, I'll take responsibility for he_ r', and ' _No, I will tell Mito eventually_ '. It's actually fairly alarming how much he has voiced the sentiments.

"That makes her even more dangerous. An unknown power, perhaps a Kekkei Genkei. She's blinded you within mere hours of her arrival, Hashirama. Even your brother can see it, thick as he is," the Uchiha states, flicking his eyes toward the man in question, and flinging his arm outward as well.

Tobirama raises a single brow at the gesture. Madara must be desperate to attempt to get an agreement out of him. Usually, out of respect for Hashirama, they pretend that they do not exist to each other. When one enters the room with another inside, they do not speak to each other, do not glance in one another's direction, do not even acknowledge the other's presence in any way whatsoever. A call for aid like this is unheard of, and far too amicable for Tobirama's liking.

And yet…

His own gaze slides over to the girl, watching her stim back and forth as she lets her head drop this way and that in a repeated, rhythmic motion, her whole body swaying with the action. She's utterly unremarkable, with the same coloring as many in the village, her hair worn short, and her frame still rounded with youth. Perhaps a bit on the heavier side for a child, but there are many children growing rounder as the clans come together to build.

However, there is something _wrong_ with this girl.

It started out like an itch in his senses, when he first registered that she was an entity of her own, and not the continued use of his brothers chakra. It was a quiet feeling, and even now he cannot put a name to it. Her chakra reserves are not abnormal, and everything seems fine, but...

She rarely speaks, for one. Oh, she talks, but nothing a child her age should say, opening her mouth to explain complex concepts that sound more like riddles than actual ideas. The subject matter she speaks of is esoteric, often vague and unfocused, yet her vocabulary is extensive, and her dictation is carelessly perfect. She does not stumble over harder syllables and sounds, and she does not pause when stringing together intricate phrases. In her tired state, her thoughts may wander, and she may trail off, but she talks with all the surety of an adult.

For another, when he and Hashirama fed her, there seemed no end to her appetite. She touched no meat, he noticed, but she consumed bowl after bowl of vegetable and rice, and devoured what seemed like some fifteen eggs in various forms. Though his brother may have been pleased to know she need not be weaned - _and of course she didn't, look at her, she's not that young_ \- Tobirama was unsettled by the sheer amount she ingested at a steady, meticulous pace. It wasn't just an improbable amount consumed, it was nearly impossible. The volume of it should have made her ill, or upset her stomach at least, but she merely shows a bit of distension in her gut instead.

More unnerving is the fact that her facial features seem permanently fixed in some serene, almost tired expression. It could be said that she is simply an inexpressive child, precocious and calm, but here had been no exclamation of surprise from her when Madara waylaid them in the hallway of Hashirama's current abode. No jump of startlement, or sudden tears. She simply flicked her eyes between the men, again and again, as Hashirama carried her to his own fuuton for her to rest.

In fact, it had been almost relieving when she began to display such a negative reaction to the verbal altercation between Madara and his brother. Of course, the repeated motions aren't comforting to witness, per say, but they are something other than the utter stillness of being that was before. It's a point to exploit, should they need to.

Hearing the silence that follows Madara's statement, Hashirama turns to look at Tobirama. His brother's gaze follows his own, and he makes a alarmed sound at the sight of the girl, as if just now noticing her distress. He probably is. Like a particularly unpleasant feline, Madara tends to demand attention, leaving none for those around him.

Hashirama doesn't touch her as he kneels by her side, leaving his hands to flutter around her, but he casts an absolutely venomous glance at both Madara and him. For a man who vehemently protested that he had no idea what to do with a child a few hours ago, Hashirama is adapting alarmingly fast to father-figure hood.

" _Hashirama._ She needs to be put under watch, not coddled," Madara hisses, despite the poisonous look.

It seems the Uchiha is always ready to push things into conflict. Surprise, surprise, thinks Tobirama, without any alarm whatsoever.

"She's a little girl, Madara, and she is upset. Lower your voice," his brother returns. He finally settles his palms on the girls back, but it doesn't seem to garner much of a response.

"Far be it of me to object, brother," Tobirama says, his level, flat tone a distinct contrast to the other two's. "But she may not be. If you remember, one of the first things she said is that her body came from your technique, and I believe it was implied she existed in some state before that. We don't know how long she's been alive."

"Tobirama," Hashirama says in a disappointed voice. It affects Tobirama about as much as the look did, which is to say, he cares more about his brothers overall welfare than his current mood. Madara, and Tobirama never thought he would even think this, _has a point_. Hashirama is growing attached entirely too fast.

"There is a large possibility she is dangerous," Tobirama says. "I'm not entirely sure she's even human."

"Brother," the older man hisses in disbelief, and Tobirama blinks. Perhaps it is a bit callous, but it is not wrong to say it. The child -if it is one- doesn't even appear to be upset any further than she already is.

"No. No more, not in front of her," Hashirama declares. "Both of you, out."

"I'm not just going to leave you alone with it," Madara returns heatedly, and Tobirama does not miss that ' _I_ '. Typical Uchiha. As soon as they gets what they desire, all thoughts of alliances or partnership are gone from their mind. This is why he can't trust them.

"She's not an it," bites out their Hokage fiercely.

Tobirama suppresses an eye roll at the theatrics of it all. This line of argument isn't going to get them anywhere, and unlike Madara, he understands that he cannot simply goad Hashirama into an action he seems set against. Instead, he has to make that option appeal to his brother.

"She's not going anywhere brother," Tobirama tries. "She said she was tired when we first met. Let her rest."

His brother stares at her stimming form, and then around the room. Tobirama knows that Hashirama is calculating the possibilities. The window is latched, and far enough off the ground it should prove detrimental to escape from, not to mention that they are three of the most powerful ninja of their time, and would hear an approach. The only other exit is the doorway they entered in from, which leads to a corridor that can be easily guarded. There is little chance of harm coming to her unless she strangles herself in blankets, or wears out the skin of her tailbone rocking so.

"She's upset. We can't just leave her," Hashirama says.

"She's upset because she's tired, and because we are discussing matters here. She only started rocking when Madara burst in and started shouting."

Madara makes a growl of protest and glares, but much like the Katon jutsu the man favors, it is entirely ineffective against Tobirama.

Hashirama doesn't answer right away, but his lips thin into a line that says he's thinking it over. He eyes the girl in his fuuton, completely voiding the world around her. Her eyelids are drooping and Tobirama estimates that she'll drop in less than ten minutes if she's left on her own like this.

"But-"

"Think of the safety of the village, if not yourself," Madara adds on, and it's like watching a Suna puppet after the wielder has been killed. He seems to crumple in on himself despairingly, all the strings cut from him.

"Alright," he sighs in defeat. "Alright."

He turns to the girl again, though, and he whispers to her in a soothing voice. He still doesn't touch her, but words of soft assurance and promises to return flow freely from him.

Tobirama stifles his frown, and waits for it to be over. It takes a few moments, and unsettles him in an odd way, but he bears it with stoic dignity. His brother has been doing things that make him uncomfortable from the moment he was born. Today is no different than the rest.

"It will be alright, Hashirama. We will settle this, and she will be here when we return," he comforts when his brother stands.

Hashirama doesn't say anything. He doesn't need to, his disgruntled expression speaks loud enough for them all to hear as they venture out of the room, gently sliding the door shut behind them, leaving the girl (or whatever it may be) to herself.

Or, rather, leaving the girl to herself for just a few moments. After the three distance themselves, inky shadows begin to pool on the wooden walls. From the corners of the room they slowly gather, cautiously congealing into the head and torso of some _other_ thing. A creature of manifest will and spite, with a form no more permanent than her own. It is a capricious, vengeful thing, this other, lingering on the fringes like a shapeshifting spider, with the whole world as its web.

"Loud, arrogant monkeys," it murmurs softly. Its voice is so much more solid than its body, so much more real even at a low volume.

The girl, or woman wearing a girl's skin -or something else entirely- continues rocking, staring at the same place she has been since she was brought into this room. The spot which the being, that _other_ , grew from like a pustule rising from skin.

"Are you Mara?" she asks, her voice airy and shaken.

"I am called Zetsu," it answers. "And I am here to save you."

She does not respond.

"Do you not remember?" the intruder prompts, searching for recollection in those unfathomable eyes. They stare impassively forward, and it sees itself reflected there, just as frightening and inhuman as it truly is. "It has been a very long time."

"I don't know," she admits. "Everyone is always fighting. I don't like it-"

"Shhhhhhhh," soothes the intruder. "You're waking up still. It will be slow. You don't have all the chakra you need to awaken fully yet, and most your body is sealed still."

"It's just a dream," she whispers, but it is a non answer. The other does not understand, but it does not need to. "How is it still just a dream?"

"Those brothers, the monkeys," the being returns to her gently, patiently trying to get the other to remember. "They cut you down."

Her blank, peaceful expression falters for the briefest of moments, and she looks befuddled and distraught as the entity slides towards her out of the wooden slats.

"Sons of Mirmir," she whispers back. "The end of Yggdrasil."

"Not the end," it assures her. The creature does not know some of the words she speaks, foreign and heavy as they are, but the tone is clear. How far her mind must have wandered, the sights it must have seen. It's confused, befuddled and unclear, but that makes it all the easier to control. "Their blood lives on, and your mind has returned. Those men, the ones shouting, if they found out what you are they would cut you down again. Seal you up another time."

She shakes her head.

"I just have to end this dream. I have to go back home and explain. The Sānqīng will know what to do. I can explain better, I know I can-"

The other finally frees both its arms from the wall, and reaches out to grasp the child with firm hands. It winds bits of itself around her like a cloying second skin, ceasing her rocking as it draws her back to the pool from where it emerged. It slips over her eyes, her neck and torso, conforming to her shape, tugging her into itself.

"You are confused," it assures her. "Still waking up. I will bring you back, help you remember."

"Mara," she condemns as the tendrils slip inside her mouth, coating her tongue with the taste of decay and soil. "You are Mara."

"I am Zetsu," it reminds her gently. "And I am saving you."

* * *

Yamanaka Ino tilts her head to the side as she scans over the information her father and the Hokage himself have brought for her to confirm.

It's only been a week and a few days since Lien last came, and subsequently slipped away, but the sheer amount of information being produced by the two sisters is astounding. There are complete notebooks filled to the brim on various topics, transcribed by steady hands. It started with the basics of what Ino knows is their language, all romanized letters with accompanying character sounds, and lists upon lists of words and definitions. Their handwritten dictionary takes up at least five notebooks on its own, and it's still not finished.

She's pretty sure that if this ever gets released, the code department will never be the same. In fact, she knows it.

"They can't really know this much," her dad mumbles tiredly from the corner of the room. Yet again she's struck by just how grateful she is for his presence, his unending support through this. She doesn't know where she would be if he wasn't there to help her sort out her head again, gentle and firm at the same time. With help, she should be able to go back to school in no time at all.

"Eight hours a day, five days a week, for nearly two decades daddy," she reminds him. "And absolute access to the internet."

"See, that's where I'm having trouble," he says, dropping the notes he's compiling to his lap. He lifts his finger to point to her in all seriousness, but the image is somewhat ruined by the pastel lavender blanket draped over his shoulders. It's her comforter from home, dotted with bush clovers and lilies, and he brought it in with a bunch of her possessions. They help ground her, remind her over where she belongs, who she really is in her head space. "It goes against everything I know to believe there is an incredibly complex network of databases, compiling all mankind's knowledge, regardless of borders and nationalities. One that allows for near instantaneous communication and can procure literally millions of sources for any given prompt. And it's accessible by civilians at any time they please."

Ino shrugs.

"They don't use chakra, so they had to figure something out. Maybe in a few thousand years we'll get there," she says, pausing for a moment to think about it. Actually, it could be less than that. Especially with a data dump like this to boost them. A decade or five, barring unforeseen circumstances, and they might get there. Then again, the culture is so different here, much more secular, so maybe not. Maybe something like it, but not at all the same.

"I'm not sure we should be aiming for a world like theirs, princess."

Ino juts her bottom lip out. She knows what he's doing, the subtle conditioning where he reinforces the idea that the other world is wrong, chaotic, and dangerous. It's a pragmatic tactic, but she doesn't like the way it creates a hierarchy, as if their world is somehow ranked above the other one. She understands her father's need to do it, but the rules he uses to quantify are often arbitrary and non-quantifiable.

"I mean, it's a wealth of information and technology, but it's very divided. One hundred and ninety six nations is a lot, not to mention the smaller factions within those countries. They also have to put up with a lot, and apparently there's a huge disparity between sects of people. There's a large divide between working and ruling classes that is only thinly glossed over. The division of labor leads to incredible specialization and a divorce from the production process-"

"Daddy," Ino interrupts. "That's Marxism. You are trying to degrade that world's processes with and argument from that world."

Her father shrugs, jostling one of the plush pillows at his side.

"The rhetoric is sound. If you want a living example, look at those who have crossed over. Supposedly, they are clan. Very, very close family. And yet..."

Ino puts her notebook down as well, her jutting lip retracted and turned into a furrowing brow. That was clever of Daddy, if she thinks about it. He began with a wide perspective argument and instead of abandoning it when it was made to be silly on one scale, he shrank it to fit another, more personal scale. One that he knows very well Ino feels passionate about.

The sisters, and their treatment of Lien.

There is a metaphor to be made there, about the division between them. The specializations they have seem to have taken for granted, and the divide between the ruling parties and the workhorses.

The memory of Franky striking Lien across the face bubbles up in Ino's head, and she very carefully breathes out through her nose to dispel her frustration.

In this metaphor, the ruling parties are the sisters, and Ino herself. They are the ones everyone is listening to. The three of them are the ones conveying information in a palatable way, and they receive the credit for it. They obtain rights and responsibilities.

The workhorse is Lien. The one who is showing them the information, who is providing labor -through transportation, communication, guidance, and realizations- is Lien herself. In turn she is degraded for her efforts, which aren't seen as efforts at all.

There is this disparity between them, this divide, where a large majority does not see Lien's labors for what they are. They see the insane whims of a mad woman with too much control, and not the reaching hands that are filled to the brim with experiences and viewpoints that need reflection and validation, which she cannot provide by herself. So she showed them to people she trusted in the hopes that they would assist her.

But those people were overly emotional. They drove her away in their fear of the situation, and have acted out of nothing but fear since then, regardless of how kindly they have been to some of the memories Ino has of Lien's experiences, this is easy, it's downright luxurious, it's-

"Well done, Daddy," Ino says with a slow breath. "I thought you were trying to make their world seem unappealing, but really you were trying to widen the gap between me and the sisters some more, just to be safe."

Her father huffs, leafing through the notebook on his lap with an airy expression. There is no guilt in him, she know, nor does she blame him. This is his job, after all, and he is acting both on orders and out of genuine concern.

"You are too smart sometimes, Princess."

"Intellectual recognition does not negate emotional response," she parrots back at him, citing something he once taught her. He flashes her a grin, knowing his methods have worked at least a little.

"It doesn't, but I wish I could draw the same emotional reaction to the one who put you in this situation," he informs her.

Ino taps her fingers on the page in front of her. She wants to find the right words before she tries to explain, but like every other time she has tried, she just can't. Sorta like she can't really find the words to explain a lot of concepts and beliefs she has these days.

It would be easier if she could do as Daddy wants. It would be nice to have a black and white picture of who is good and who is bad, to work towards one goal without interfering ideologies and conflicting information. If she could, she just might give up understanding for simplicities sake.

It isn't that tidy though. A comprehensive worldview rarely is, let alone a comprehensive view of two worlds on mental, emotional, and intellectual scales. It never used to be like this. It was never this difficult before Lien.

That thought, more than any of her father's efforts, is what makes Ino begin to feel a smidgen of negativity towards the woman. It's just a seed, but with dread, she realizes that seeds have the bad habit of growing.

'No,' she reminds herself. 'No, I won't be upset because I know more. It doesn't make sense.'

She repeats it like a mantra in her head throughout the day. Lien is confused, a lost form looking for her body. Lien is harmlessly trying to figure things out, deliberately avoiding any violent action. She is attempting a peaceable solution to her problems, and Ino believes that she can do it.

Do _what_ , she isn't sure, and which 'she' eludes her as well, though.

* * *

 **AN: So, I tried to clean it up some, but if there are mistakes, let me know. Also, Lien is gonna be in the upcoming chapter a lot because 1)She's a main character. 2) The plot has need of her. I know people understand/relate to/like Franky and Theresa more, and they have their time, but this arc kinda got off the rails because I shifted focus.**

 **Edit:Fixed some typos**


	20. The First Giant and The Union of Norns

I do not own Naruto.

* * *

Mara is not human. His manifestation in this world is not either.

Zetsu, as it calls itself, is not a man or a woman. It has no gender, no biological confines like a living creature. It has no single form, no need to eat or drink, no want for comfort or care. It knows not the feeling of joy, or the depths of despair. It is immune to such emotions, classifies them as trivialities that humans succumb to. In fact, it sorts many things that way, as nothing more than variables associated with humanity that it must take into account to fulfill its schemes.

There is one thing it understands though. In fact, it comprehends it so well it could be described as an aspect of its very being. Zetsu knows what desire is. Zetsu _wants_ , longs so much that it festers inside of it like a hunger, crawling across its entire being like a fever, scrambling through its entire being. There is no empty space, no missing piece, but the sensation still remains. It needs to fulfill something, accomplish its goals, and sate its want. It's what it was created for, after all. It is its mother's will made manifest, and what is will, but the desire, the very action of implementing what one wants?

It is the one thing it acknowledges as truly sharing with the humans. Joy it can mimic, and despair it can parrot. Humor, wit, anger, frustration, elation, all these things it can copy, but the only thing it truly can empathize with, the only thing it can understand, is want. Everything desires something, from the mighty river, the ant on the ground, to the man that calls himself Daimyo, and Zetsu is no different. It's a master of this subject, and it knows how to turn individual desires and bend them around to suit its needs.

Therefore, if there is one thing Zetsu is good at, other than gathering information and remaining unseen, it is the spirit of the Shinju -the remains of the God Tree- is not human, it (or she, as the Shinju apparently prefers) must have a want. Everything does.

So Zetsu takes her far, far away from where the incarnations of Asura and Indra build a village. Those reborn brothers will remain as they are for a little longer, and Zetsu cares not for how they might react to the absence of one not-child. What it cares for is that one not-child, that seed of godhood, and how she can be used to feed Zetsu's desires.

Zetsu guides her form through the soil, jumping root tip to root tip. It can feel her lips moving around the tendril inside her mouth, trying to speak. The sensation is strange, but promising, because the Shinju wants to tell Zetsu what she wants. She may not not remember what happened after the millennia that have passed, but she has a desire inside of her. One that Zetsu can use, if it only knows what that want is first. One she is eager to tell.

And when they make it to the safety and Zetsu removes the tendrils of itself from around her, freeing her tongue, it utters one phrase.

"Tell me," the other thing breathes, despite its lack of lungs and vocal chords. "Tell me everything."

And the Shinju, tired and worn, _speaks_. Words spill out of her like water from a heavy cloud. She stutters at first, slurring now and again, but as time goes by her speech grows strong as her body wears down further. Her voice stabilizes, and she spins a wondrous tale of another world and another life.

Zetsu _listens_ , like so few before it have done. It stills its fluid form, paying close attention the the words she is speaking, and wonder of all wonders, Zetsu understands.

It garners what even the God Tree itself does not, connecting pieces of information like broken shards of pottery, back into a whole. It gleans a whole story, one that starts before memory, when the Shinju left her original body, the same way she does every night when she dreams, and slid across dimensions until she found another form to be her vessel.

But the Shinju spent too long out of her form. She lingered in those inbetween places, riding the fields that flow across the heavens, and forgot. Time wore away at her memories, at her consciousness, at her very soul (as split as it already was) and her mind faltered.

What is left is a weakened seed that is convinced she is human, one that knows much, but comprehends very little.

"-So, you see Zetsu, all the things that make up the universe are temporary, and therefore without concrete identity. Everything that is valued is only valued because we give it that, the same way we give it permanence to ideas that are actually arbitrary. Morality, success, quality of life, class status, gender roles, monetary systems, governments, countries…. People made them up. They exist because people believe in them, and the more people believe in them, the more real they become.

"Extending it beyond societal and cultural constructs, the particles and fields that make up the universe are variant. The masses they have, the states they exist in, the directions they are heading; all of it is variant. _They are constantly changing and often unstable._ Often times, their behavior is downright random. Macroscopic and microscopic scales often conflict, existing within state of paradox. That is the truth.

"Yet, for some reason, there is some sort of existence. I cannot attests to others, I can only be sure I exist myself, but that is at least some sort of consciousness, and as I explained earlier, I choose to believe that consciousness affects reality, and not just on an individual scale based on perception. Consciousness inspires the movement of matter, and changes its state. It drives the harnessing of energy, in all the shape that energy takes. Belief shapes reality in this manner.

"So I need people to believe, Zetsu. I need them to believe we can escape the dream that catches us all, and ascend beyond it.

"Thus, I did not need saving, but to return to those I have already convinced to highlight these points, and ask their council," she declares, dragging her palm across the cold stone beneath her. There's almost no light in the depths of the cavern Zetsu has taken her to, but Zetsu can still make out her disheveled form. The short spikes of her hair sticking out at the ends, the strange wrinkled fabric of her pants, and her ragged looking shirt.

Zetsu considers her for a moment, and how to address her want. She is not a ninja, and follows codes that are foreign to it, so its actions must shift to accommodate that.

The silence stretches on between them, an almost absolute quiet that only exists in the bowels of the earth. Were Zetsu alone, it is sure that it would hear nothing, not the drip of water on stone, nor the breeze running across anything in its path. This place is a place to its own, still and absolute, and the hush is only ruined by the near inaudible sounds of the Shinju's breath.

"I see," Zetsu says finally. "And I believe you."

The not-child in front of it stills, and the sound of the breathing pauses.

"Do you?" she asks in a detached voice. She may be working to keep her mind in the present, to be human, but it is just that. An act she truly believes, a role she plays.

"I do," it answers. "I only worry for you."

Zetsu draws nearer to the still form, taking human shape and mimicking things it has seen humans do. It glides to where she sits, and runs its hand across her small shoulders. She jolts in surprise to the touch, unable to see, but her body gives her away, and she leans into the touch.

"The ones you seek for council, they rejected you, and when the brothers argued, you retreated inward. Conflict discomforts you, and there is much to be found in any world," it tells her, sliding its hand to rest around her shoulders. "What if you die?"

"I've died many times in this world, Zetsu, only to wake up in another, or flit in some strange place until I do wake," she admits.

"It is because you are separated from your true body, the one the brothers sealed away," Zetsu rationalizes, resting its head on hers. She still does not shy away from the touch, seeking comfort in away way it is given. "How many times have you died? How much violence have you faced, only for it to be brushed off by those whose council you seek? How wise are they if they do not respect your experiences, and do violence to you?"

"I don't understand what your are asking, or what you are trying to tell me," she confesses.

"I am saying it must be very hard to feel so compassionately towards those who value you so little. Aversion to violence is understandable after so much trauma."

"And what are you telling me?"

"That I know many things that you may yet not know. That I can protect you from the brothers and the violence. That I can help you make people believe," it whispers.

She shivers, and Zetsu pulls her closer still, so they are pressed side to side. It curls its larger form around her, turning it's grinning face into her short, spiky hair. For a second, it imagines how they both must appear. How very poetic this all is in nature. The everlasting will, and the fading God Tree sheltered by it. It should be Mother here, Zetsu knows. It was Mother that watched over the Shinju, that chased it through the stars. It was Mother that ate the fruit it provided, and elevated herself beyond time and space as well.

"Who are the brothers?" she asks.

"Old souls, reincarnated time and time again," Zetsu answers, allowing the non sequitur. "Sons of the one who sealed your body away."

"This is my body," she says, mumbling the words into his side, but distant somehow.

"If you believed that, would you be asking me who the brothers are? Would you be here at all when you just admitted you have the power to flee?"

The Shinju does not answer, but Zetsu takes satisfaction in its victory. Maybe that is another thing it can feel, if only briefly when it succeeds.

She leans further, letting Zetsu bear her full weight. There isn't much of it in her current form, and she droops as she thinks its words over. They sit there, the two inhuman things that they are, masquerading as people, playing out an act of companionship, and after a long, long period of deep contemplation, she speaks.

"Gautama Buddha resisted the demon Mara's temptation and reached enlightenment, yet the worlds are still trapped in a dream. He did not realize that Mara was part of everything too. Mara had its own enlightenment."

"You are very fond of anecdotes."

"What I am trying to say is that I don't believe I have as firm of a conviction as he did. I am afraid, I am confused, and I am very tired of people not understanding. I am tired of not knowing."

"I understand, I know," Zetsu volunteers. It hopes to placate her, to coerce a bond from her.

"In some way, I think you do," she accepts.

"Let me help you then," it tempts. "Let me alleviate some of your weariness. Stay here and rest while I watch over you."

Her eyelashes flutter against its side, and Zetsu drags its hand up from her shoulders to run its fingers through her hair. She shifts slightly, adjusting herself a bit more to find a comfortable state.

"Rest now," Zetsu advises softly.

"Oh, Mara. This is a heretical path," she whispers, and the breath that leaves her mouth brushes against his side. Not as air, but as something entirely more solid. Zetsu jerks when the thing touches it, its inhuman eyes searching out whatever it may be, and watches in amazement as the Shinju begins to change. From her mouth a root emerges, as slim and fine as twine, and it snakes across Zetsu's body as it searches for something more grounding.

Zetsu reaches with its free hand for the shoot, instinctively guiding it towards the stone beneath them. The wooden tendril feels warm to the touch, soft even, twining almost playfully around Zetsu's fingers.

The growth from her mouth breaks through the enduring stone, cracking it apart like glass. The other being feels the tiny fingers laying on its side grow denser, shifting away from flesh into something else, and watches her legs grow out of the clothes containing them.

The body of the child changes into roots and wood, crawling across the cavern in search of anchors, tentacles winding around stalagmites and cracking through dense mineral. The structure shudders as it draws strength from the soil, branching outwards and upwards, thickening into something else entirely.

The rapid expansion slows though, coming near enough to a complete stop that Zetsu believes it to be drained. The original shoot still creeps across its chest, and the roots that once were fingers spread out across its lap. Zetsu rests its head against the knot that grew where her head once was, and caresses the giant sapling covetously.

The wood pulses gently around Zetsu's body, a living thing that seems alive with intent and a deep, gnawing want. One that Zetsu can name now, one that it can use.

"I know," Zetsu whispers to the small Gedo Mazo, the great manifestation of the heretical path they have both begun to walk. "And in time, you will remember too."

* * *

Ino dreams she is the wind.

There is nothing in the world that can contain her as she sweeps across the world, growing stronger with each and every thermal rising from the dunes beneath her. Her body, if it can be called such, is an expansive thing, wide and broad, touching the tops of the sparse clouds while simultaneously brushing across the shifting sands. Her fingers drag across the ground, reshaping the landscape as she pleases, moving mountains of grains here and there, swirling it around in tantric, mesmerizing patterns, delighting in the colors that shine when one has no eyes.

There is no end to her, no true beginning. The elation in her heart soars to unknown heights, right alongside her mind, and she sings as she flies across the desert, howling out words in a language forgotten by everything save for the sea, sun, and stones.

That, alongside one disgruntled scorpion, and her sister, the oasis.

"Stop blowing so hard!" the scorpion clicks at her, mandibles moving furiously. The beady eyes lining its face all glare as much as something without eyebrows or eyelids can.

"Hah, blowing," the spring bubbles up in mirth.

"Franky," the scorpion admonishes, its tail twitching annoyance. It clicks its yellow-red pincers in frustration, scuttling along the dunes in its search for food. It had been trying to write out equations in the sand, but the mind of an arachnid is particularly unsuited for linguistics, and the winds kept erasing her attempts in fits of childish pique.

"Bruh," Frank gurgles, her voice the sound of liquid lapping against stone. "I can feel myself trickling under the earth for thousands of miles. Let me have this."

"It must be so hard," Ino goads, whirling around the scorpion hard enough to unbalance it, and whipping across the surface of the spring. "To have this amazing experience that nobody else will ever have."

"Who pissed in your cheerios?" the water murmurs as the scorpion clicks and stomps in a wordless shout.

"You shouldn't hit family," the gale replies, whirling up and up and up.

The scorpion stills for a moment, and the water does as well. For a time unmeasured they seem to contemplate those words.

"Lien?" the water asks sheepishly.

"You should be so lucky," the wind whispers back.

The scorpion unfurls its tail, as if stretching for a moment. Its vivid carapace sparkles mutely on the ground, and one by one it raises its legs in a wave.

"Skuld," Theresa guesses after a moment.

"The one and only," the wind confirms. It shoves a cloud on its ways, and lifts a lone hawk higher still so that it might have a better chance of finding prey in the emptiness of this land.

"Wait, Skuld? Or Scold, as it may be-"

"We aren't related. Don't ever speak to me again," the scorpion deadpans.

"-We haven't met yet. How can you be angry at us?" the oasis bubbles. Its body laps gently at the plants around it, making sure they are nurtured in this unforgiving place. That, at least, Ino can find no fault in.

"We haven't been introduced formally, no, but I need you to think hard. I know that will be difficult for as, as you don't do it often, but remember who was there when you all first arrived, beside the Hokage and the Anbu?"

The water goes quiet for a moment. Then, as if in surprise, it gushes out a little more, causing ripples on its surface.

"The blond kid!" it deduces, and then. "Man, I am being roasted by a fucking brat."

"The heiress?" the scorpion chimes in. "The one Lien assaulted?"

"It wasn't assault, it was an accident," the wind spits, twirling dangerously in on itself. Debris rises inside of it, and the dust devil caught in its grasp is a gargantuan thing, rising several stories in height. "You always doubt her."

"Woah kid," the spring says. " Calm down. Theresa didn't mean-"

"-And you! You struck her when she came for help! You remain angry and cruel, so focused on yourself you don't see that this is normal for your cousin. That being held in relative safety without bodily harm is a good night for her," Ino howls, gathering strength. The breadth of the dust devil widens, and the things caught inside its grasp are flung around at dangerous speeds.

The springs glugs guiltily, and even the scorpion stutters nervously.

"They were just supposed to be dreams," the oasis sighs.

"You are too young to understand," the scorpion says.

Enraged, Ino shrieks across the desert sands, bellowing as she flies across the landscape, picking up things as she goes. She gets bigger, wider, until instead of the wind, she is a thousand hands grasping at things to throw. Her airy palms scoop and grab all that she can, from dust, to rock, to one weary nomad who jerks in surprise as he is yanked right off the ground.

Likewise, the scorpion herself is snatched from the ground, screaming. It whirls around inside of the dust storm. Its limbs spasm in strange, unwieldy ways in terror, tail lashing out aimlessly, claws clacking helplessly.

Then, in true temperamental Yamanaka fashion, she dumps all of them in the oasis, screaming.

"I have her memories!" Ino wails. "I understand more than you two at this point!"

A myriad of alarmed noises rise from the now muddied spring, which makes hacking, choking sounds as it tries to filter itself clean. The debris clouds its depths, and it shouts its sister's name in terror.

The scorpion itself does not answer for a long while. For a moment, Ino thinks it may have been crushed, but the wet, garbled sound of its mandibles clicking eventually sounds once more. The oasis gushes as the arachnid scuttles across the floating body of the nomad, pincers raised in defense.

"I-" Theresa chokes, clearing water and dust off herself as best she can. With no fingers, and six legs, it's a bit of a chore. "I apologize."

"Don't say sorry to her Theresa, she's fucking psycho-" the spring cries out, hurriedly shuffling the body to the safety of shore. The currents inside of her are not very strong, but she makes do.

The wind, alarmed at its own temper and subsequent actions, forcibly calms itself. It cannot count its breaths, but it can count the number of sparkling grains it shifts as it passes through the land.

"No, I am sorry. That was childish and highly emotional." the wind sighs eventually. "If anything, I proved your point to be true by my actions."

"Maybe," Theresa says. "But your own points still stand. Since the start, we have been reacting to the events around us, instead of simply just acting. We lashed out in our own ways, me by belittling Lien, and Franky by force."

"Speak for yourselves. Lien left us in the care of literal mercenaries. Legit killers and thieves for hire," Frank adds on. "Case in point, hurricane over there just tried to off you and some stranger, and she's like five."

"Eight," Ino corrects.

"Eight," the oasis repeats in a tongue that spans beyond mortal time. "And almost a killer."

"Bias," Theresa reminds her.

"Bias, yes, I know. I also know I want my chainsaw back, and to get Lien to a facility that might actually help her. I don't want to be locked away in the depths of some shadowy government," Franky grouses, nudging the nomad further onto land. The scorpion on his chest remains there, drying itself and removing grit from its body.

The wind, remembering the havoc that it just caused, carefully controls its anger.

"Franky," the scorpion says, enunciating carefully. "It isn't that simple."

The oasis remains silent. It sullenly swirls around the edges of its banks, ignoring its sister.

"I want to go home," it says after a moment.

Its sister snorts, which is a strange sound from something that has no sinuses. It comes out more of a slight, strange vibration of its carapace. "Yes, well, I would rather not be a flippin' scorpion, so…" she adds.

"What are we supposed to do? What options are there?" the water states exasperatedly.

The wind swirls gently in thought, absentmindedly brushing against the nomad to help dry him off. She can't see him, exactly, but she does feel a niggling sense of familiarity at his general shape. The contours of his face, the the texture of his hair, everything she can feel is familiar.

"I think we're done actually," the winds comments lightly. "We did just found a country, after all."

The scorpion wheezes, and the oasis groans with a sound that would better suit the wind.

"This isn't a _dream_ dream, is it?" the scorpion asks, despite full well knowing the answer.

"No. This the first Daimyo of Wind Country, and allegedly, he was guided by supernatural forces to a water source that would later become the heart of Sunagakure," Ino says. "Pretty sure that this is the past."

The oasis lets out a violent string of profanity that somehow sound poetic in the ancient language they are speaking. The scorpion throws up its pincers, completely done with its life.

"We didn't even mean to!" it cries.

And thus the Norns (and Wind Country) were born.

* * *

 **An: A big thanks to Siartha on tumblr for helping out once again. Almost missed that. Also, in this instance Mara/Zetsu is playing the role of Ymir, the first giant. Supposedly, Yggdrasil sprang from them. I also want to point out the missing use of they as a pronoun for Zetsu is entirely intentional.**


	21. The Body Problem

I do not own Naruto. TW for dysphoria, and the Hero's Journey short definition is literally a quote cited in text. Not mine either.

* * *

Theresa wakes up, and for a moment, she does not know _where_ or _what_ she is.

She opens her eyes slowly, her senses bombarded by strange signals. There is a warmth around her that is achingly familiar, the brush of something soft against her bare legs. She tries to recall what it could be, but her mind blanks on an answer. There is nothing that should be this comfortable against her skin, not the utilitarian blankets of the cell, or the harsh sands of some un-named desert.

Likewise, she is thrown by the smell of what is around her. It's a strange, nearly chemical scent, tinged with false notes of lavender that barely mask the odor of stale blanket. Whatever she is lying in could use another wash, or at least, it could stand to be hung in the sun for a few hours.

The taste in her mouth, at least, isn't all that bad. It's the universal dry cottony taste that comes after a night spent breathing through her mouth instead of her nose. Arguably she was snoring, but since she wasn't awake to hear herself, there is nobody to ask, it will forever remain a mystery. (Or not, because Franky swears she snores and has captured evidence of such in the past.)

Groggily, her mind full of nothing but the mental equivalent of white noise, Theresa sits up. She registers blankets falling about a full female waist, and wrinkled sleeping clothes draped off a very rounded woman's chest. The silhouette of human legs beneath the rest of the blankets makes her head spin. It looks so alien, so very foreign to her after nearly two weeks of living in a dank cell, and however long she spent as an arachnid.

'Is this…' she asks herself. 'Are we back?'

For a second, she cannot comprehend such a thing.

Almost subconsciously, she lifts her hand to her face, and the sight of five fingers, all human and hers, sends a pang of absolute confusion through her. Her stomach rolls in her gut as she splays them wide, and her heart flutters in her chest. It feels so wrong, so absolutely strange, that she is sure that something has gone wrong. She doesn't have hands, surely. Last she remembered, she had pincers and many sets of legs.

Theresa can almost see them where her hand is, the thick shell around them unyielding and powerful. The phantom feeling of six lost legs shudders down her side, and her spine just feels all wrong where it rests in her back. She should have no bones at all, just a carapace holding her together as she converses with the wind and water in a tongue too old for memory.

She shakes her head, and her brain is telling her that her vision is all wrong. She's missing a bunch of colors, and seeing entirely different ones. After a beat, it switches tracks and says that the floor that she places her (two, very human) feet on should be made of unforgiving concrete instead of comparably plush carpet.

Theresa decide she cannot handle this right now. She needs to go pee. Maybe, after a cup of tea, this will all be better.

She makes her way down the stairs like a ghost, trapped inside the surreal sensations coursing through her. The stairwell, something she has seen everyday for the course of nearly a decade, baffles her. The stains on the wall, the jackets hanging at the bottom, and the single cobweb on the ceiling throws her for a loop. She stares at the house spider in the corner for a long, long moment, marveling at the moths caught in its sticky web. She knows they allow it to live there for that exact reason, but for a moment, she just...doesn't understand.

She thinks about it as she goes through her morning ablutions, and when she's washing her hands, she does her absolute damndest to stare herself down in the bathroom mirror. This is the face she has had since puberty ended. The same auburn hair, the same golden skin, the same rounded features. This is who she is, she tells herself. This is Theresa. This is her home. This is her time. This is her world. This is her life.

She repeats it like a mantra as she walks her way back into the kitchen, carefully ignoring the very existence of the guest room where her cousin should still be asleep. She cannot deal with that right now. She cannot even begin to imagine what she would do if Lien showed her face.

In fact, it comes as a relief to look outside the kitchen window as she's filling the tea kettle, and not see Lien's car. She must have gone to work, allowing her family to learn to cope with what they just went through in peace. To Lien, this must be normal. This must be _easy_ -

-But she doesn't want to think about that right now. She just wants to get used to this place, her home, her body, again.

She mixes herself something to ground her. A black brew with enough caffeine to kickstart her, and in a moment of thoughtfulness, she readies coffee for her sister, alongside a rooibos blend in case Franky wants something nostalgic and calming instead.

She then takes a seat at the table, warm mug in her hand, and stares at her fingers, fighting the sensation of wrongness in her gut. The warm sunlight filters through the window and casts everything in a cheery, lovely glow, and it's almost terrible to her. She was in those cells for a long time, and there was never any windows.

This is her home, not a cell, and not a desert, she reminds herself. This is her world. This is supposed to be right.

It doesn't feel that way though. Nothing feels right.

Theresa isn't really aware of anything until she hears footsteps on carefully creeping down the stairs, almost cautious in nature. They take the same path she herself did an indeterminate time ago, and after some time, she hears the gentle clinking of cups, and the slosh of liquid in ceramic. Her sister steps around the corner, her dark skin beautifully illuminated by the morning light, coffee cup in hand.

It should be a lovely sight, and something in Theresa's chest does ease a bit, but the look in her sister's eyes is just as lost as the one she saw in the bathroom mirror. Neither of them speak as they settle down and attempt to find themselves again.

The silence, however, is broken when the door to the guest room squeaks open.

Theresa makes every effort she can not to cry. It is a very, very close thing.

The baker, after some very heavy breaths, turns her head toward the noise. In the seat next to her, she catches Franky doing the same, and so it is that both of them seem to glance the newcomer at the same time.

She is… young. A teenager at most, and she has the most striking eyes Theresa has ever seen. A pastel tinge, something that sits prettily between green and blue, with no pupils to speak of. She could be blind, but Theresa does not think so. Not with the way she scans her surroundings so awarely.

Her hair reminds Theresa of a Tolkien elf's, or rather, the movie version of Tolkien elves. Galadriel and Legolas could probably swap secrets with her, in some far off fantasy world, and she wouldn't be out of place. Or maybe she would be, with the outfit she has on. It's one hundred percent something Theresa might see on a fashionable teen in this world, with only hints of the other spattered in, taking the form of mesh and weapons pouches.

Her gaze lands on them, and she stills.

"What…" and Theresa can almost hear the unspoken 'time are we in?', but without a shared point of relativity, it's a useless question. So the newcomer changes it half-way through and says "What is the last event you remember taking place?" instead.

It's a good question, something in the back of Theresa's mind murmurs. Much more orienting than the first one.

"We were in a desert," the plump woman answers hollowly. "I was a scorpion, my sister a spring."

The newcomer gets a far-away appearance for a moment, as if trying to recall the situation.

"I was the wind," she answers breezily, settling her sights back in the present.

"Ino," Franky utters, sounding slightly bitter.

"Ino," she agrees, approaching the table. Her footsteps are sure, and she pulls out a chair in between the two sisters as if she has done it many times before. There is a forwardness in her movements, a confidence that speaks of memory.

Theresa follows that thought to its logical conclusion, considering the circumstances.

"Time dilation," she guesses defeatedly. "This isn't the first time you've been here."

The blond teen flashes her a smile, one that speaks of comfort and familiarity. It's not one Theresa is used to seeing on anybody but family, and that shakes her even more than she already is. At this point she feels as if she might jumble to pieces and float away on a breeze.

"Always the smart one, Verdandi," she teases, her accent playing strangely on the harsh consonant sounds.

"Don't," Theresa breathes softly. "Don't call me that. I can't handle it right now."

The light in the teen's eyes fades a bit, and she nods her head in respect to those wishes. She holds herself straight, her body language opening, but not overly familiar.

"You aren't eight," Franky states, drawing the attention away from her younger sibling.

"Not right now, but somewhere I am," Ino agrees.

Theresa distantly is aware that Franky reacts poorly to this statement. Her jaw grits, causing the muscles in her cheek to stand out in what looks like an almost painful manner, and she can see her sister swallow rapidly. She breathes heavily through her nose, and Theresa can almost feel the rage oozing out of skin.

Franky, it seems, is very tired of riddles and nonsensical speak.

The teenager seems to see this, and she raises her hands, a silent plea for forgiveness. She bows her head once, and Franky seems to register that it wasn't what the girl intended.

"I can give you space, if that's what you want," she offers, and the depth of understanding in her voice is what causes Theresa to shake her head.

"We want answers," Frank says, her hands gripped tight around her mug. "We just want answers."

The newcomer nods, straightening her posture. It seems to Theresa that this is done entirely on purpose, to give the sisters distance from a figure that seems to know them, but acknowledges that the reverse isn't exactly true.

"I have some of those," she responds clearly.

The relief on Franky's face is heartbreaking, but Theresa has no doubt she is wearing a similar expression as well.

"No riddles. No mumbo jumbo. No philosophy," Theresa requests.

The blond tilts her head, and again, gives her something of an apologetic smile.

"Some of that, but I can try and make at as clear as possible," she says. "We can take a break at any time, if that helps."

Franky somewhat numbly nods her head.

"Give it to us as straight as you can," she says airily. "We'll tell you if it gets to be too much."

Ino nods and takes a deep, grounding breath. For a second, Theresa watches in envy as she laces her hands together in front of her with such calmness. Her palms do not shake, her hands are not sweaty, and she looks nothing like a teen that just woke from bed, let alone one that spontaneously jumped worlds. She's so calm, so comfortable in her own skin, even though she once embodied the wind itself. It gives Theresa something to latch on to. A hope for the future.

"To begin, I should clarify what what I meant earlier by the statement that somewhere I am eight. I mean that literally. Time, as we three experience, is not linear to anything but our perspective of events. As we understand it, all events in time are happening all at once. Meaning that as I sit here talking to you, there simultaneously exists a me that just watched you all appear from thin air in an interrogation cell. It's all happening all at once," Ino asserts calmly. It sounds like the product of many sleepless nights, and years of thought. Not something Theresa thought she would hear from the mouth of a wizard assassin, as she assumes this teen has come to be.

"Time doesn't exist. Everything we can or will do is already been done," Franky states.

"Is happening," Theresa corrects, a void in her heart.

"But why us?" Franky demands.

Ino gives no sign of hesitation, but her next words are bit more carefully stated. Theresa braces herself as the tone of the teens voice smooths out to a soothing tone.

"Because your cousin isn't just your cousin."

Nobody has words for that. Silence is king at the table, and Theresa watches the shadows cast by the leaves outside skitter across the wooden tabletop in front of her.

"I know that isn't easy to hear, or even something you want to think about, but as far as we know Lien isn't originally from this dimension. It's why she traveled to ours so often. We are of the understanding that she, as she prefers to be known, is actually something of a sentient mass of chakra, or as you know it here, energy."

She says it quickly. Clinically. Like if she states it this way, it will be easier to accept.

"That's not possible," Franky denies, a fragile grin stretching across her face. "That's not...I was there when her mom got pregnant. I was alive when she was just a baby. That's not possible, right Theresa?"

Theresa cannot bear to look at her sister.

"What makes you say that?" she whispers damningly.

"We can take a break," Ino replies gently. "You can stop here."

Theresa closes her eyes.

"What. Makes. You. Say. That," She forces out.

Ino casts a level gaze at the both of them and nods once, respecting the choice they have made.

"In our world, interdimensional travel isn't unheard of. After your appearance, some questions were asked about the specifics with those who have knowledge of the subject, mostly those with knowledge of summons -or allies who exist on separate planes that can be contracted to travel to ours- and those with knowledge of fuuinjutsu. They...well, the closest existing thing we know of is called a bijuu. There was precedence, in other words, for Lien."

"Bijuu?" Theresa demands.

"Chakra -or energy- constructs, capable of dimensional travel. The summons said they once traveled the worlds at will. Understand what I tell you is considered confidential to the point of no questions asked execution, but they didn't disappear. What I know is that they've been sealed away, or most have been, inside human containers," she answers solemnly.

"That doesn't explain anything," Franky hisses.

"Lien isn't exactly a bijuu. Most don't need bodies, but Lien seems to be searching for a stable form. She continues returning to our world, so we think that subconsciously she may be looking for one she left behind there," Ino attempts to clarify.

"That doesn't explain us though," Franky states, slamming her hands down on the table. "Your theory has more holes than swiss cheese."

"Lien still believes that you are her family," Ino states, her voice unwaveringly calm. She didn't even flinch when Franky moved, and her breathing is exactly the same. Her control is iron clad, and Theresa doesn't doubt for a second that every move she makes with it is deliberate. "And as such, she's granted you the ability to travel as well by pumping your souls so full of Yin chakra they can actively move worlds as well. I may be wrong, in fact, I could be incredibly off. I don't think I am, but a well structured argument could change my mind. What do you think is happening?"

Franky goes to open her mouth, and Theresa can literally see the moment 'This isn't actually happening' crosses her mind. She closes her mouth and clasps her hands around her mug, silenced.

"I went off topic and got confrontational," Ino laments apologetically, running her hand through her long bangs. "Sorry."

"You're just a kid," Franky says after a beat. "I should have been more in control."

Ino waves her hand, as if shooing the mistake away.

"Ignoring the semantics of age if we include dreamtime-" Theresa jolts at the thought, because Jesus Christ, does that count? "-I should probably ask if you guys know what the Hero's Journey narrative is."

"No," Franky says defeatedly, losing her hold on her cup and pulling her phone from her pajama pocket. "But I can find out in about thirty seconds."

Ino shoots a longing glance at the device, her gaze hungry and wanting.

"Ah Google. One day, maybe my life will be so simplified," she sighs.

"It complicates more than you think," Theresa says, her voice still shaky.

"Yet contains almost all of mankind's collective knowledge. I'm honestly unsure why your civilisations have such focus on schooling when you've developed a tool that allows for near instantaneous information sharing. I know people that would commit atrocities for such a thing," Ino drawls conversationally. The thing is, Theresa doesn't believe for a second that Ino is exaggerating.

"According to The Writer's Journey dot com, The Hero's Journey is a pattern of narrative identified by the American scholar Joseph Campbell that appears in drama, storytelling, myth, religious ritual, and psychological development. It describes the typical adventure of the archetype known as The Hero, the person who goes out and achieves great deeds on behalf of the group, tribe, or civilization," Franky reads out-loud. "It then goes on to list a bunch of stages."

"Good. Memorize those stages. Maybe not in order, but the stages are kinda important."

"Why is this important?"

"Because Lien is trying to ascribe to religious folklore, but can't decide which. Granted, she keeps messing up the stages, and it's all muddled, but it's a good as map as any at this point," Ino informs them in all seriousness.

Franky breathes in hard through her mouth, then carefully lets it out again.

"I don't care if she's at work, this is ridiculous," she says through clenched teeth.

Ino glances at them both, and then leans back in her chair. Her lovely hair catches the sun, and for a moment it looks like liquid fire.

"Lien didn't go to work, Franky," she announces.

Something like dread settles in Theresa's gut. She can feel a shiver run down her back, and she feels nothing more than like she is living in Plato's allegory of the cave. She's been inside the stone walls for all her life, and they are all she knows. The dancing shadows are real to her, they are everything.

But she can't be that person anymore. She can't live in a world full of false forms. That's not who she is.

Theresa turns to Ino, who, most likely, will be the one who drags her from the cave into the real world.

"Where is Lien, Ino?" she asks.

Ino turns those startling pastel eyes on Theresa, and she can see the satisfaction in them. She can almost hear the teens thoughts, the echo of her earlier words. ' _Always the smart one, Verdandi_.'

"Back in my world, we think."

Theresa, despite not wanting to have the knowledge, picks up exactly what is implied by that statement. Lien stayed behind when the others woke up. What came back is just wearing her skin.

* * *

 **AN: Siartha on tumblr, again, has gone over and made sure this is all squeaky clean and makes at least passing sense, and kept my moral boosted. The Hero's Journey is a thing. A fairly important thing, maybe? I would suggest looking it up and having a fun time seeing who goes where and what not.**

 **I also want to take a second for the cadre of reviewers who have been posting pretty reliably. Bless you. Seriously, you guys have kept this story alive more than I have. Lurkers are important, but you are the spine, brain, and heart keepin me going.**


	22. Make like a Tree and Leave

I do not own Naruto.

* * *

Zetsu names her the Gedo Mazo, and it's one of the last things Lien hears with human ears for a very, very long time.

She's not as aware of it as she should be. The passing of time is strange in this form, because she cannot read any clocks, and it takes a while for her branches to even begin sprouting, let alone turning their leaves toward the sun. Time is a not a concern to her, not really. She's barely even awake in this form, caught between the half slumber, half awareness that comes when she sheds herself of her previous form. She has little mind for keeping track of things outside her immediate concerns and the presence of her cousins fades entirely for a while.

Instead, Lien is occupied with new senses. It's hard to describe them with words, she finds. How does one describe hunger when one has no stomach? It's like an emptiness, but one she can feel in every rigidly lined cell of her body, a distinct lack of something that pushes her roots to grow further, to search harder to fill her. She consumes, taking in every drop of water she can, and every nutrient in the soil she can reach. She grows, and it becomes harder to sate that emptiness in her cells, that hunger like sense, and so she searches out more.

There's something in the earth, something in the water, stone, and everything around her. Something she couldn't see before, but can't absorb enough of it in this form. It's energy, pure and unfiltered, a raw chakra that seeps from everything around her. She takes it almost greedily, and that aching tiredness she felt before seems to fade the more she gets. The nature chakra is a balm to her, giving her the strength she needs to finally begin budding leaves.

And oh, what a strange feeling, growing leaves. They are soft and flexible when the rest of her remains rigid and unmoving. She can feel things she could never feel before as they emerge. The softest changes in air current, the chemical composition of the air itself. She can turn and twist them to gather what little light there is in the cavern, and she swears, it feels so very right.

Then, wonder of all wonders, her expansive root network touches anothers, and suddenly Lien is tumbling through six thousand trunks, a ghost speeding behind curtains of peeling bark and branching boughs. It floods through her in an information overload much like the one she once shared with Ino, only instead of a merging of two minds, it's like she's a tiny piece slotting back into a single grand one.

Her roots are suddenly every root, a network spanning across the land. Her trunk is no longer singular, but every trunk, shoot, sprout, and stem for as far as the land reaches, and she's everywhere.

She reaches deep down into the planet through the length of some sturdy taproot, slithering farther than any other living creature has ever thought to go. She's climbing higher and higher in the branches of a distant canopy, aching to feel the sun against her in the form of a broad, saw-toothed leaf. She's the fragrant flowers blooming full on the branches of fruit tree near the killing desert sands, and the tiniest sprout pushing up past the topmost layer of soil to begin its life.

There are others here, big and small, the minds of these things. The sentience that is so alien that it escapes observation, and is written off as nonexistent. The trees have names unto themselves, words that aren't spoken, but communicate clear enough anyway. They don't welcome her, but they do not shun her either. They are as they are, and they accept her as she is here as well. They are playing small roles, singing in quiet voices to a tune few can hear in the choir of the entire cosmos. The sounds of the trees are almost entirely drowned out by the songs of the stars, but they sing nonetheless.

Lien is reminded of something as she does this. Trickles of memory that seem too far away. She can't recall it exactly, the way one can't recall being an infant very clearly. Yet there is something rattling around inside her, the instinctual feeling of clouds around her, below her grand height. A great crevice in the ground, and the sensation of being one among many. An old wonder, and forgotten awe.

Sublime as it all is though, it is not meant to be forever. There is only so much she can process, only so much she can be as Lien before Lien melts away and becomes something else entirely. The memory of the Dao's rejection of her unbecoming is warm in her mind still.

It comes as a relief then, when a call reaches out for her in the depths of the one among many. It is a peculiar sensation, not unlike the string she uses to pull herself across worlds. A sharp tug on the chakra she has collected, one that draws her back. With soft sighs of lamentation that come out as the groaning of wood, she disengages from the complete awareness to slide back into her own trunk.

It feels...more right, but not quite correct. Not even the same as it was when she made it.

She is wooden, yes, made from branches and bark, but she has been reshaped. She can feel limbs, can sense great arms and legs folded into the lotus position. A new body, with nine eyes she is too tired to open, and a mouth with teeth. She is gargantuan now, her back hunched where it braces the cavern walls, her head bowed. Half tree, half titan. New blood runs through her shell, curious cells that are human, but not hers.

Even stranger still is what she can feel dangling off herself. She is full of things, corpses that are trapped inside her hold, wrapped tenderly in the embrace of her sprawling roots. Parcels of flesh her new form takes substanance from, the same way it takes nutrients and water from the earth.

Only, she could never feel the nutrient from the soils the way she feels the echoes of these bodies' minds. The dead hang from her branches, the curious human cells grafted into her body molding their forms like putty into a single shape. White clones with green hair, little seeds of undead life, bastard fruits.

She pulses in shock, seeped in the energy she has absorbed, and the Zetsu seems to sense this. She can feel it there, not exactly human shaped, more liquid than solid. Even more than that, she can feel another still. The one who called her back, who summoned her mind and brought such changes upon her form. He is familiar, she thinks. The man who once saw her when she was remade by the Dao, the black haired friend of the man who declared himself her father.

"Zetsu," she calls to to the other being without words, her consciousness extending to touch her companion's. "Zetsu, what is this?"

Zetsu doesn't answer her, not directly. Instead it caresses a length of bark with a tendril as if to console her, hiding in the darkness of this new place, away from the eyes of the other. The other being soothes her with gentle brushes of its inhuman hand, scratching out words on her bark.

"Gedo Mazo," it scrawls against her, so small compared to her new body's size.

"Gedo Mazo, Madara returned an old body to you."

"Many bodies," she mourns. "Many souls."

"You know how it is here," Zetsu tells her comfortingly, sliding along her tangle of roots and branches. "The violence, the strife. They will fall, and in one way or another, return to the earth. Decay is natural, and their bodies will nourish something else as they were nourished. It is part of the cycle. Part of your Dao."

"Zetsu…"

"You are part of nature, more than before. What difference does it make if you gain sustenance from the corpses, or a tree a thousand miles away?" it asks her.

She does not answer.

"If it because of the form you once took, do not despair. The skin you had was not you. You were never human."

That one, that aches inside of her. It's a raw hurt, but a distant one. She wants to protest, wants to say that she was, and that she is, human. However, she stops before she starts because how can she make that argument now? How can she say that when she travels worlds, when her roots are tangling with others underneath the stone and soil? How can she say she is human when she has branches that span for meters outward, and leaves that crave light? When this feels so right?

"The Shinju gave chakra to Mother, and the world received it from her in turn. This is simply chakra returning to you," it soothes.

She shivers as much as she can in this form, and it comes out as the rustling of vines, her sigh the sound of creaking branches. She has no eyes to see with, but she can feel the man, this Madara, place a hand on her gargantuan form. It is a weathered palm, and she suddenly realizes that it must have been a long time since she visited her physical form. Years must have past since she took the shape of a child. Decades perhaps. It's the longest she's ever spent in this world, but it feels like almost no time at all.

"He is old," she says, and Zetsu agrees. Its body vibrates in a manner that might have been a hum, were Zetsu human.

"He is not done though," Zetsu advises. "His body fails, but his mind still has strength. When he connects to you, show him. Make him believe."

She doesn't understand what Zetsu means, not really. Not until Madara guides her aerial roots into his own skin of his own free will, and she knows him inside and out. Her mind brushes his, and she sees his hate filled heart. He is aching with vengeance, convinced of his own righteousness and power, and brimming with hurt.

He doesn't need to hurt, she thinks. Not when this world isn't real yet.

She will show him that. Convince them all. She'll show every lingering shade inside her body, every leftover ghost that haunts her branches, that this world is a dream. She'll make them believe in her world, give them a new perspective with an old body.

"Wake up, everyone," Lien whispers, and the legion of souls whose bodies are hanging from her branches murmurs and wails. Madara himself senses this, senses her and all of them, and he opens his mouth in protest.

"Hush now," she commands, gathering the souls together in mass to experience everything as one, and sending them on their way.

Which leaves her and Madara to watch.

* * *

Franky doesn't want to believe what Ino told them.

She thinks it's actually kinda stupid, the whole body snatcher, mind switching nonsense. That happens in bad sci-fi novels and t.v. series. It is never supposed to be real. She's not so far gone that she doesn't process the irony of that statement, considering she has done both, but that was over there. In the other world. Not here inside her own.

She's...not tired exactly. Weary fits better. She's weary, kinda shocky, and she needs time to process this all, but she also needs to confirm whether or not her cousin is her cousin. So here they are, driving around the restaurant parking lot to the back, staking out her cousin's break area like some wanna be cops.

Funnily enough, never in her life has she understood Lien's complete lack of interest in partners or children more though.

For a teenager, Ino isn't all that bad. She's handling the situation with more aplomb than any of them, actually. However, she's still very much a teenager.

"Switch the radio station one more time," Franky threatens, going to slap the girl's hand away and turning the radio off. She dodges the swat easily, but stares at Franky with startling blue eyes that plead innocence. She's squashed in between the two sisters, riding cozy in the middle of the bench seat.

"There's so much music though," she tries to explain.

"Not now," Theresa scolds, rubbing at her temples. It's been a trying morning for all of them, and to be frank (hah), Franky doesn't have much patience left.

"Seriously though. We only get music at festivals, or if we know someone who play, maybe if we get lucky on a mission, or it just happens randomly. It's all live and with the same instruments. You guys have so much diversity, so much choice-"

"Ino," Franky snaps. "I get you might be used to this, but we aren't. Let us have this."

The fey girl frowns, but she relents, slipping in the backseat once more. She fidgets occasionally, like she's uncomfortable with the confined space, but honestly Franky is just happy the girl didn't puke. She didn't give any signs of being upset, but her pallor changed at least three shades when they started driving, taking on a green hue.

Wizard assassins apparently can still succumb to motion sickness. Or claustrophobia. Or something, fuck if she knows a damn thing at this point.

They wait, the engine idling and AC blowing. The silence is actually a bit stifling, but Franky prefers her tension to mount in the quiet instead of to the tune of twenty different genres of music. The tempos never quite match up to mounting dread.

And it mounts. It piles high and heavy on Franky's shoulders. She keeps having to touch things to remind herself that she has hands. Then she has to check and make sure they are her hands, not some wrinkly old man's. She keeps remembering being water, for her body being a loose thing stretching thousands of miles above and below ground, remembers being aged and weathered, her joints tired and sore, remembers being a mere thought in someone's head when he dug her out of his skull with his fingers-

She grits her teeth and sets her jaw. It will be okay. It will be fine.

As if to spite her, the moment the thought crosses her mind, Theresa slaps her shoulder. She looks over at her sister, who is staring out of the car at something near the back door.

It's Lien, staring right at them.

It's...wrong, somehow.

"You know, we never got close to it before now," observes Ino placidly.

It waves at them, still dressed in the prep-cooks apron, which Lien never wears outside because it's against regulation. There are stains all over the front of it, and it's sleeves are rolled up its thing forearms. Her body is still dressed in the clothes from yesterday, looking wrinkled and frumpy, but what is most unsettling is the complete lack of expression on Lien's face.

It starts walking toward the car.

"I think I understand why you told me to leave it alone now," Ino says, sounding disturbed.

"Shit," Theresa hisses. "Shit."

Franky agrees. The walk is all wrong, fluid and confident, eating up ground with quick strides of short legs. The focus on her cousin's face is unfamiliar, the efficiency of her movements is too quick. Too clean. Lien walks like she has nowhere to be in particular, and she gets distracted easily by seemingly nothing at all sometimes. This thing walks with murder in its steps, a calculating look in its eyes.

It's mouthing something at them, a foreign word.

"Chakra," Theresa breathes. "It's saying chakra."

"Fun fact," Ino decides to pipe in, eerily calm. "Your world has little to none of it. However, everyone in the car does."

Franky fumbles with the gear shift for a second, trying to put it in reverse and get the hell out of here. Something in her chest is screaming at her, telling her that it is dangerous. That whatever is inside her cousin is wrong.

A hand slaps down on the hood, and she jolts in her seat. Theresa lets out a pained sounding wheeze.

Ino leans over and _rolls down the fucking window_.

"Hey there," she greets, and it's only now that Franky realizes they've been speaking in the damnable almost-japanese of the other world. For a second she's afraid that it's taking over everything, that this can't be happening-

-But it is. This is happening. This isn't a dream. She has to remember that.

"You know, you look like our friend, but there's a lot in that head," Ino continues, her voice perfectly chipper and calm. It's astounding how in control she seems, but from inside the car, Franky can see her hands trembling on the window crank.

Ino is afraid of this thing.

The thing says, and it grins, showing far too many teeth. Suddenly, Franky longs for her cousin's half smile with all her heart.

"Yamanaka," it wheezes, and it sounds like too many voices trying to gain control of one throat. It's all wrong, a body fighting with itself. Or a hundred minds fighting for one body.

"And you are?" Theresa spits, fury in her tone, but she too is suspiciously still.

"Many," it answers. "She made into one."

-And suddenly Franky is seven again, sitting on a hard wooden pew in the middle of church, while her friends father sitting straight and stern while the preacher reads from Mark.

"' _What is your name?_ ' Jesus commanded the demon," the voice in her memory reads. "' _Legion_ ,' answered they in the body of a possessed man, ' _For we are many_.'"

She is fresh out of miracles though, and there is no Jesus in the car to cast this demon out.

"Why are you here?" Theresa demands of it, even though her sister is ready to convert religions on the damn spot.

It tilts its head, huffing something that might be a laugh.

"She wants to show us," it tells them.

There is no doubt in her mind who the she is. Lien has been doing something horrible. Something vile and repugnant against nature itself to further her goal. Why would she think this is okay? Who let her think this was a good idea?

"Show you a dream?" Ino asks, her voice firm.

It laughs again, that terrible sound. For an abomination against nature, it sure is humorous in demeanor.

"We were human once, we were whole," it says. "She made us this. Made us all white. Made us hungry."

"That is the most ominous thing I have ever fucking heard," Franky adds, her hand creeping around the gear shift, her foot hovering just above the gas.

"Shiro is a good name," it murmurs, almost to itself. Franky wonders how this thing got through the door to the restaurant, let alone got through several hours of prep cooking. It's creepy as all fuck and she hates it. Hates it with all her heart. "Your chakra feels tasty."

"Alright. Shiro is a good name. Can you tell us about Lien?" Ino asks, totally ignoring that last part. "Maybe what time you're from? What happened to you?"

For a second, Shiro loses focus like it's mind is shorting out and it doesn't understand the question.

That's when Franky elbows Ino back into her damn seat, cranks the gear shift, and floors it. Shiro jerks away as the car spins into motion, peeling apart from the thing in their cousin's body, because no. No. Franky refuses to die like a white person in a horror movie. When some creepy body snatcher starts mumbling about hunger and how tasty shit could be, she's out.

Theresa makes a protesting noise, and so does Ino, but Franky has enough sense for all of them. No. They are staying clear of Lien's body until this is all figured out.

* * *

 **AN: We give thanks to Siartha for betaing once more, and also helping me find some sort of direction for this chapter. The research I did on the senses plants have was both enlightening and startling, also. Thanks to all you reviewers, and my lurkers, favoriters and followers as well.**


	23. Butterfly Dreams

Lien does not know what she is anymore.

Ostensibly she is still a person, but this...what she is doing. This is not what a human can do. A homo sapien cannot see without eyes and grasp the souls of the unresting dead in their hands. It cannot wind them together into a thread and cast them a world away.

A human cannot lend the twined phantoms their body, does not feel their minds and hearts as they move in borrowed flesh.

She sees them, inside and out and knows what they once were, what they are; the very core of them. She experiences the world beside them, looking through their eyes and feeling with their hands.

One and many. One, and nothing at all.

What would her cousins think? What would they say?

( _She is the hunched form of a statue; legs crossed and arms folded across her knees, nine eyes across her face, a gaping mouth clenched shut. She is a twenty-year-old woman; her limbs rakish, her throat thin and bird-like, her face still to childishly round to be taken seriously. She is awake. She asleep. She is a bridge. She is the destination-_ )

The cost of such a feat is not negligible. It drains her to keep everything spun and anchored, and the effort seeps away at the stores of energy she has sucked from the soil and air. Lien can feel the flow of chakra begin to eat away at her, chipping at the strength she has collected in the decades that have passed.

In the end, she can only do it for so long, so she stops. Calls herself back, breaks the thread holding them together so she might have a little room for herself.

'Wake up,' she whispers without a voice.

And it does, but as with all things, it is not as it was.

What returns is not the isolated souls of the corpses that hang from her branches, but a new thing.

Shiro, it calls itself. A conglomeration of many minds remade into one, shaped into the image of a hivemind that so pleases her, returns from its sojourn with glee instead of the anguish it had. She can feel it, a new entity that buzzes inside of her boughs, a changed presence, so very alert.

It is hungry, her Shiro. Desperate to be alive.

It laughs inside the cradle of her branches, and its voice drips from her white sap.

Madara, who has spent his time standing insensate, gasps at the sound, sputtering awake like a drowning man pulled from water. He sits there, still bound to her by roots and tendrils, feeling the brush of her mind against his.

"You live," he whispers to himself. "You dream."

'We all dream,' she tells him, barely lingering.

Something inside crumples, and she feels that if he were another man, he would weep. She can feel the realization dawning on him, the desperation with which he clings to the idea that it's real, that everything he has known is correct.

A fools effort, but an understandable one. It's never enjoyable to be dragged from what you know and forced to see a different point of view, let alone to be forced to experience several simultaneously.

Lien can see him trying to personalize it, applying his new perspective to the life he has lived. There are flashes of dread mingling with acceptance, a vision of a boy whose life was cut too short, a brother with whom he built a village, and a creation that rejected him. She feels the anger inside of him, the ache of living a lie.

"The irony," he says. "Living an illusion with eyes that can see through them."

He breathes in, and she feels his chakra wavers and flares.

"I will make a better world," the old man spits. "A real world."

This she does not answer. Nobody does, and he's left unsure whether there was anyone to talk to in the first place as she retreats back to her roots, seeking out the other.

A hand rests on her trunk at the declaration, and she can feel Zetsu patting her bark like it's ruffling her hair.

' _You did it_ ,' it tells her, hands scratching characters against the wood of her limbs. ' _They believe._ '

She shivers, causing the pods full of corpses to sway on her branches. What does it matter if she can't remember what she is anymore? If she's losing the borders of herself, turning into something no one will recognize? What is the cost of not being human?

' _Once upon a time, I, Zhuang Zhou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou,_ ' she thinks to herself. ' _Soon I was awakened, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man_.''

It matters not whether she is a tree or a woman, Shinju or Lien.

They believe, and she is making the world real.


End file.
